Episodes
The Department of Transport Western Australia has been working with Western Australian local governments to develop, trial and evaluate ‘safe active streets’ to encourage more people to walk, wheel and ride in their communities. The pilot program trialled and adapted common local area traffic management treatments to create 30 km/h environments with unique designs created that reflect local community needs and context. This webinar explores the origins of the program, how and why it started,...
Published 04/09/24
Moisture damage in asphalt (also known as stripping) can significantly reduce the durability and strength of asphalt pavements, often resulting in expensive repairs. Hydrated lime is widely used in Australia to reduce the moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixes in service; however, potentially more sustainable additives (such as liquid anti-stripping agents) are also widely used internationally to reduce the risk of moisture damage in asphalt pavements. Austroads has completed a project that...
Published 04/08/24
The National Walking and Cycling Participation Survey is a survey of the Australian community to understand their participation in walking and cycling. The survey has been run every two years since 2011. Until 2019 the survey was managed by Austroads. In 2021, Cycling and Walking Australia and New Zealand (CWANZ) took over the coordination of the survey, adding walking to get a baseline on the level of participation for walking across Australia. In this webinar, CWANZ presented the 2023...
Published 04/05/24
Austroads has completed a project to replace the obsolete gyratory compactors used in design and quality control testing of asphalt mixes and update its Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4B: Asphalt. Austroads asphalt mix design procedure currently relies on Gyropac compaction for volumetric mix design. The discontinuation of the Gyropac compactor has resulted in a significant gap in the Austroads asphalt mix design procedure and created a need for a replacement. The Austroads Asphalt...
Published 04/04/24
Austroads has completed its update of Section 3: Inspection, Testing, Monitoring and Reporting of the Guide to Bridge Technology Part 7: Maintenance and Management of Existing Bridges. The project involved taking a fresh look at the inspection process to provide a flexible framework from which users of the Guide can develop and improve their own inspection processes. The project team undertook an assessment of Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions, as well as some international...
Published 03/28/24
This webinar presents the work involved in developing a standardised comparative risk assessment method for assessing life safety risk of dangerous goods being routed through the tunnel or via an alternative surface route. The project was conceived to focus on new road tunnel projects, but the methodology developed could also be used for comparative assessment of alternative surface routes. Dangerous goods are a wide variety of substances and objects that pose acute risks to people, property,...
Published 03/26/24
This webinar is hosted with the Digital Atlas of Australia Team and Geoscience Australia. In this session we explore how the Digital Atlas is transforming the way we access and use location data. The team discusses the National Roads dataset – a comprehensive dataset on Australia’s roads, now freely accessible to the public. The team also talks about the value and insights driven by integrating a national, reliable view of Australia's road networks with other trusted location data.
Published 03/05/24
Over the last decade there has been a trend by a number of governments to invest more heavily in transport infrastructure and systems, and to accelerate programs of work. This has been a response to various ‘burning platforms’ including transport congestion in our major urban areas, fast growing populations, extreme events like flooding, bushfires and earthquakes, and job creation to support economic growth. While there is an extensive range of advice on project management, there is little...
Published 03/05/24
This webinar presents the results of the Austroads project that developed guidelines for incident response vehicles and truck-mounted attenuators. The project was a collaboration between Austroads, iMOVE, Queensland University of Technology and Deakin University. Two sets of guidelines have been developed as part of the project. The first set provides information on models/types and design specifications of incident response vehicles. The guidance focuses on three vehicle types: tow trucks,...
Published 03/05/24
The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 has set the ambitious global target to halve road traffic fatalities and injuries by 2030. Some jurisdictions have set even more ambitious targets by setting a date for achieving zero road trauma, such as by 2050. While there is a growing body of evidence around what initiatives are effective in reducing road crashes and injuries, what is missing is how to prioritise these measures and a lack of tangible planning frameworks to...
Published 02/08/24
Driver licensing legislation and regulation is the responsibility of each of Australia’s 8 states and territories. However, there is a commitment by all jurisdictional regulators to harmonised practices with minimum licensing standards. Under the Austroads registration and licensing taskforce, states and territories agree periodic programs of work to improve licensing practice which recognises emerging research and trends and supports movement towards increasing road safety. To guide the...
Published 02/06/24
Australia’s Transport Ministers have agreed in-principle to an improved, nationally‑consistent approach to the training and licence progression of heavy vehicle drivers, that improves road safety and productivity. The in-principle changes were approved by infrastructure and transport ministers in December 2023 through the agreement by the Infrastructure and Transport Ministers Meeting (ITMM) to endorse the National Heavy Vehicle Driver Competency Framework Decision Regulation Impact Statement...
Published 01/30/24
How do drivers respond to the iconic tunnel design features included in the NorthConnex road tunnel project? What were the objectives of the designs and have the designs achieved these objectives? How do the designs affect driver behaviour? The webinar explains the two key elements of this work – the validation of the UNSW driving simulator as a means of assessing road tunnel design features, and the use of that simulator to test driver response to the design features included in NorthConnex....
Published 12/05/23
The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics held a webinar on the 16 November 2023 to update industry on the Northern Territory’s transition to the National Training Framework Temporary Traffic Management (NTFTTM). Industry and individuals currently working in Temporary Traffic Management roles, or associated with the Temporary Traffic Management industry were encouraged to attend to understand the changes being implemented in February 2024. Transitional arrangements being...
Published 11/16/23
Austroads has developed an extended vehicle classification scheme (EVCS) to enable improved understanding and monitoring of the evolving vehicle mix on Australian and New Zealand roads in traffic and transport surveys. This builds upon the existing 1994 vehicle classification scheme. The EVCS provides greater granularity for each of the existing 12 classes of vehicles and adds a new class for active transport to address the need to count a variety of active transport users such as...
Published 11/09/23
Austroads has developed an extended vehicle classification scheme (EVCS) to enable improved understanding and monitoring of the evolving vehicle mix on Australian and New Zealand roads in traffic and transport surveys. This builds upon the existing 1994 vehicle classification scheme. The EVCS provides greater granularity for each of the existing 12 classes of vehicles and adds a new class for active transport to address the need to count a variety of active transport users such as...
Published 11/02/23
Austroads has developed an extended vehicle classification scheme (EVCS) to enable improved understanding and monitoring of the evolving vehicle mix on Australian and New Zealand roads in traffic and transport surveys. This builds upon the existing 1994 vehicle classification scheme. The EVCS provides greater granularity for each of the existing 12 classes of vehicles and adds a new class for active transport to address the need to count a variety of active transport users such as...
Published 10/25/23
In this session, we will present a comprehensive report that identifies and explores those physical infrastructure practices that matter most to CAVs. Just like human drivers, CAVs need to understand line and pavement markings, electronic and non-electronic signs, and traffic signals. Computer sensing and computer processing, however, differ to humans, and differ between different and evolving systems used in Active Safety Systems (ASS), Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and...
Published 10/19/23
Supplements have provided important additional guidance to the Austroads Guide to Road Design (Guide). But there are questions about their use. Are these supplements needed? What should they contain? Should the information in the agency supplements be included in the Guide? These questions were addressed in a recently completed Austroads project that undertook a detailed review of jurisdictional supplements to the Guide. This webinar describes the classification of material in the...
Published 10/05/23
Following previous workforce capability studies undertaken in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2017, Austroads engaged Oxford Economics Australia to undertake a new workforce capability analysis for member authorities based on planned and forecasted infrastructure development and service objective requirements in Australia and New Zealand over the next 10 years to 2032. Through stakeholder and industry engagement – as well as gap analysis including extensive data analytics – this analysis seeks to...
Published 09/22/23
For over a decade, the National Telematics Framework has been setting a benchmark as an effective regulatory framework for optimised vehicle movements, making Australia a world-leader in intelligent access management. The National Telematics Framework (Framework) was established following a series of decisions made by ministers between 2003 and 2008 and was globally recognised as an International Standard (ISO 15638) in 2012. Supporting an open marketplace of telematics and related...
Published 09/20/23
Road users in regional and remote Australia are at a greater risk of road trauma than those living in major cities. Approximately one third of Australians live in regional or remote areas but two thirds of fatal crashes occur in these areas. The fatality rate in regional and remote areas is 12.2 deaths per 100,000 population and increases to 34.6 deaths per 100,000 in very remote areas. The former figure is almost five times greater than the rate for major cities which is 2.6 deaths per...
Published 09/13/23
Information on injurious road crashes is required for prevention. National information on fatal cases has been available for many years, but information on serious non-fatal cases has been lacking. This webinar will take participants through the outcomes of Stage 2 of an Austroads project commissioned to establish a system to report serious injury cases due to road crashes in a consistent way throughout Australia and over time. Stage 2 aimed to obtain ten years of data from all jurisdictions...
Published 09/12/23