FORT NOVOSEL, ALA. -- The U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center launched its Army Motorcycle Dashboard earlier this month in its continuing efforts to arm commanders, leaders and safety professionals with the information they need to help keep Soldiers safe.
The Army Motorcycle Dashboard is a compilation of all motorcycle mishaps in the Army since 2019, according to Mike Reed, USACRC chief of Research, Studies and Analysis.
The dashboard allows users to see all the data entered into the Army Safety Management Information System 2.0 about each incident, so they can use that information to identify and track trends – in their area or unit, the Army as a whole, or locations wherever the Army is present – and then take steps to address standout problem areas, he added.
“Information is power, and this dashboard will help them understand what is going on – not only in their area, but also areas around them,” Reed said. “We update the system with each new mishap that is reported into ASMIS – and it is all classes of mishaps, including Class Rs (involving National Guard and Reserve Soldiers) – to get the information out on what is hurting and killing our Soldiers in the realm of motorcycle mishaps.”
And the threat is real. Since fiscal year 2018, an average of 28 Soldiers die each year in motorcycle mishaps. In FY24, 34 Soldiers died in motorcycle mishaps while 36 died in automobile accidents, despite only an estimated 20% of Soldiers operating motorcycles, according to USACRC statistics.
“The dashboard empowers people to do more to help save Soldiers in what is one of the two major causes of deaths in the Army – cars and motorcycles,” Reed added. “Users can identify trends and then tailor their briefs to address the biggest threats.”
Users, including motorcycle safety program coordinators, can look at the dashboard data and see how many motorcycle mishaps occurred within a given timeframe in their area or unit, and also other details, such as how many riders were not wearing helmets, the involvement of alcohol, the type of bike involved, whether another vehicle was involved or if it was a single-vehicle mishap, etc., he said.
However, the dashboard is highly dependent upon the quality of information entered into ASMIS 2.0 for each mishap, Reed said.
“If a user is noticing a lot of the data fields read ‘Unknown,’ then they need to look at the quality of the reporting into ASMIS,” he said. “If you put good data into it, you’ll get excellent products out of it. We can still make some enhancements to it, but for the most part the system is reliant on what they put in.”
Created using Microsoft Power BI, the system is quite user-friendly, according to Reed.
“I have been overwhelmed with the intuitiveness,” he said. “It is extremely easy to use, and where there may be a need to understand something, we have these yellow boxes in there to explain what to do there – basically to click to get more information.
“The beauty of it is that it is all tied together, so you can change things on the fly,” Reed added. “That allows you to drill down in ways you normally couldn’t do with other systems, and it also offers maps, graphs and charts to provide graphics to allow for visual representations of the data.”
The genesis of the Army Motorcycle Dashboard involved a request for information from the field for motorcycle mishap statistics for a unit. That unit, pleased with what it received from the dashboard, shared the information with its higher command, and further requests came in, Reed said.
“We shared what we had done with an analytics working group and the commanding general liked it, so we expanded it for the whole Army,” he added. “It’s in its infancy, so we welcome feedback and suggestions for how to improve it.”
People interested in using the dashboard can visit https://safety.army.mil/Off-Duty/Motorcycles and click on the blue “Request Access” button in the yellow box.
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