Healthcare Road Accessibility Map

This dataset provides national coverage of healthcare road accessibility in Australia, focusing on access to hospitals and ambulance stations.

Resources:
1. Publication: A Dataset of Healthcare Road Accessibility in Australia: Service-Based Grouping and Residential Reachability
2. Dataset: figshare

Hospitals are classified into four groups based on the number of clinical services they offer: Blue (16+ services), Green (11–15), Orange (6–10), and Red (1–5). Ambulance stations are included without grouping to support additional access analysis.

Accessibility is calculated using shortest-path routing across OpenStreetMap road networks. Estimated travel times are adjusted based on road speed limits and regional driving conditions. Two key accessibility layers are provided:

• Road nodes: each showing distance (km) and travel time (hr) to the nearest hospital in each group.
• Sampled residential points: representing population perspectives with linked hospital access metrics.

Travel time accuracy was validated against Google Maps API, showing average discrepancies of: ~3 minutes (urban), ~10 minutes (regional), and ~90 minutes (remote areas).

Aggregated statistics are available at the SA2, LGA, and remoteness levels to support regional comparisons.

Interactive Applications

Explore the dataset using these interactive Shiny applications:

All spatial layers are in EPSG:7844 (GDA2020). Data sources include AIHW, OpenStreetMap, Geoscape G-NAF, ABS, and Digital Atlas Australia.