The BCIRPU webinar series features speakers discussing relevant topics related to injury prevention, with a focus on evidence-based information and new research.

Publicly Available Road Traffic Data in British Columbia: Applications in Research

Thursday, March 27, 2025
10:00 AM PST
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Breanna Nelson, PhD Candidate
Breanna is a PhD candidate at UBC and a graduate research assistant with the BCIRPU. She has spent the last three years working on road safety research projects. A large portion of that work has involved finding road traffic data across British Columbia.
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Abstract:
As a part of a project examining the effects of COVID-19 restrictions on road-related injuries in BC, researchers searched for publicly available road traffic data and found numerous publicly available data sources. The largest data source is the BC Traffic Data Program, which includes over 900 sites throughout the province and reports on traffic volume, speed, and length data. Additional data sources include traffic volumes from the City of Vancouver and the City of Surrey. The available data required extensive cleaning prior to being usable in any analyses. In the context of COVID-19, researchers found a stark decrease in road traffic volumes, and a slight increase in vehicle speed at the onset of the pandemic, compared to the pre-pandemic period. Overall, this work demonstrated the vast amounts of publicly available road traffic data across BC. These data may be valuable for future road safety research, as it can be used as a denominator, offset variable, or covariate in road-related injury research. The data are limited in that vehicle speed data are only available from the BC Traffic Data program, which largely consists of highways and other inter-municipal roadways.

This webinar will demonstrate the various publicly available road traffic data sources across British Columbia. This presentation will highlight the BC Traffic Data Program and other resources and their utility in road-safety research.
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