In this blog I’ll share the workflow and tools used in the GIS part of this analysis. To understand where crashes are occurring, first the dataset had to be mapped. The software of choice in this instance was ArcGIS, though most of the analysis could have been done using QGIS. Heat maps are all the rage, and if you want to make simple heat maps for free and you appreciate good documentation, I recommend the QGIS Heatmap plugin. There are also some great tools in the free open-source program GeoDa for spatial statistics.

This road network dataset was created from data extracted from OpenStreetMap (OSM) across the geographic area of Australia on 05 August 2020. Its purpose is to represent motor-vehicle traversable public roads within Australia. Note, however, as the original dataset is built by a community of mappers, there is no guarantee of its spatial or attribute accuracy. Use at your own risk. This road network has been topologically corrected for the purposes of network analysis for motor vehicles. For more information about the map features represented in this dataset (including their attributes), refer to the OpenStreetMap Wiki. Please note: The original data for this dataset has been downloaded from Geofabrik on 05 August 2020. AURIN has filtered the original data and omitted features to present the topologically correct, motor-vehicle traversable road network.