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Fast-response teams keep Brisbane ambulance arrivals under 45 minutes as cities like Sydney and London lag
A dispatch model that moves ambulances preemptively to known blackspots helps Brisbane hold ambulance response times below the national target even as the city grows by 1,500 new residents a week.
How we reported this
Brisbane paramedics are reaching the sickest patients within 14.3 minutes on average, more than four minutes faster than the national target, and this city's year-old Proximity Dispatch model is being studied by emergency services in Sydney and London, internal Queensland Ambulance Service data obtained by The Daily Brisbane shows.
The figures matter because southeast Queensland is absorbing roughly 1,500 new residents every week, according to the state's June population bulletin, and the added pressure on the city's road network has historically pushed ambulance travel times above the 21-minute benchmark for life-threatening emergencies. In the 12 months since the LNP government expanded the pre-positioning program from 12 to 29 deployment bays across greater Brisbane, the number of code-1 arrivals exceeding 30 minutes has dropped by 22 percent.
Where the ambulances stage
QAS now parks spare crews at fixed points on Bowen Bridge Road in Herston, near the PA Hospital on Ipswich Road, at the Capalaba Ambulance Station on Old Cleveland Road, and at a temporary bay inside the Cannon Hill Shopping Centre carpark on Wynnum Road. The model uses real-time traffic feeds from Brisbane City Council's 270-odd intersection sensors to dispatch the closest available unit before a 000 call finishes being triaged.
London Ambulance Service, which piloted a similar system in 2024, saw its category-1 median rise to 11.5 minutes in May, nearly four minutes above England's 7-minute standard. Sydney's mean response for priority-1 cases hit 16.7 minutes in the March quarter, three minutes slower than Brisbane's equivalent. QAS Commissioner Craig Emery told a parliamentary estimates hearing in May that the pre-positioning network cost $4.2 million to establish and runs on an annual budget of $1.1 million, mostly for overtime and fuel.
What happens next
By October, QAS plans to add four more bays along the Logan Motorway corridor near Meadowbrook and Springwood, where population growth has reached 4.6 percent per year. A review of the first year's data, due for release in August, is expected to recommend shifting two bays closer to the Gabba precinct to cover the anticipated 5,000 extra daily trips during 2032 Olympics construction.
For residents, the practical takeaway is straightforward: call 000 for a chest pain or stroke symptom and the nearest ambulance is very likely already sitting within three kilometres of your street. QAS has also published a live map, ambulance.qld.gov.au/proximity, that shows the 29 bay locations in real time, so commuters know where the emergency vehicles are staging before they hit peak-hour congestion on the Riverside Expressway.