Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

The Austroads Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4B: Asphalt provides comprehensive guidance for the selection of constituent materials, mix design, testing, manufacture and placement of commonly used asphalt mix types in Australia and New Zealand. The Guide was first published by Austroads in 2007, followed by a major revision in 2014. The most recent edition presented in this webinar captures the major advancements in asphalt technology over the past decade. 

This webinar goes through the major changes to the Guide, including any new content not previously included in Part 4B: Asphalt. It will be especially relevant to anyone involved in the asphalt industry, including designers, road managers, asphalt suppliers and contractors.

How are Australians walking and cycling in 2025? The National Walking and Cycling Participation Survey is Australia’s most comprehensive source of data on how people move through their communities. Conducted every two years since 2011 and commissioned by Cycling and Walking Australia and New Zealand (CWANZ), the 2025 survey was delivered by Painted Dog Research and captures a nationally representative view of walking, cycling, and emerging micromobility behaviours.

This year’s study engaged over 12,000 Australians through a dual-mode approach (online and phone) and included several methodological enhancements. It sheds light on how often people walk or cycle, for what purposes, and how this is evolving - including increased use of e-bikes, e-scooters, and other rideables.

In this webinar, the Painted Dog team walks through the key findings from the 2025 survey across Australia and each state/territory.

Calvin Lim from Painted Dog Research presents the results from the research, alongside representatives from CWANZ. The session also includes a Q&A Panel discussion featuring Michelle Prior, Chair of CWANZ, Kirsty Kelly, CEO of Transport Professionals Association and Dr Ingrid Johnston, CEO of Australasian College of Road Safety.

As transport systems grow more complex and interconnected, the ability to manage both planned and unplanned Intelligent Transport System (ITS) outages is essential to keeping people and goods moving safely. This webinar presents findings from an Austroads project focused on strengthening the resilience of Transport Management Centres (TMCs) in the face of ITS disruptions.

The research involved consultation with transport agencies across Australia and New Zealand, and a review of local and international practices. Drawing on operational insights, shared challenges, and real-world examples, the project developed the TMC Response to ITS Outages Framework, which is a practical tool to support structured planning, response, and recovery for ITS disruptions.

This session covers:

• key themes from agency consultation and operational research
• real-world case studies highlighting how agencies have responded to ITS outages
• the Framework and its components, from business continuity to recovery
• how it supports readiness for both planned (e.g. maintenance) and unplanned (e.g. system failure, cyberattack) outages
• tools including risk matrices, training approaches, and standards alignment.

This webinar is relevant for a range of road/transport agency staff, including TMC managers and operators, ITS and IT managers, along with resilience planners and those involved in responding to ITS outages.

Austroads' Bridge Assessment Guideline: Heavy Vehicles emphasises risk-informed decision-making for the asset management of road bridges and the management of heavy vehicle access. The emphasis on decision-making, rather than focussing only on the calculation of rating factors or assessment ratios, reflects the multitude of considerations faced by road agencies when making decisions concerning bridges.

The Guideline provides assessors and road agencies with a framework to reduce conservatism in the assessment of road bridges for heavy vehicle access, particularly for bridges that do not meet the requirements of AS 5100:2017 or the NZ bridge manual. Where assessments indicate unsatisfactory performance despite in-field evidence to the contrary, the Guideline offers bridge-specific advice for explaining the plausibility check prescribed in ISO 13822:2010 consistent with fundamental engineering principles.

In line with its focus on heavy vehicles, the Guideline provides advice and techniques for managing access by these vehicles over bridges. It distinguishes between bridge assessment, which is focused on structural performance, and heavy vehicle access management as related but distinct activities.

The webinar outlined the decision making framework as well as provided an overview of the Guideline’s contents.

The Austroads Bridge Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in bridge design, management and delivery across Australia and New Zealand. Recognising innovation, technical excellence and collaboration, the Awards highlight projects that address complex engineering challenges while contributing to safer, stronger and more connected communities.

This was the first of two webinars showcasing the 2025 Award winners. Presenters shared insights into the design, delivery and outcomes of their projects and answered audience questions.

This session covered:

• Excellence in Sustainability – Victoria Bridge Refurbishment QLD, submitted by Arup, Brisbane City Council, Nick Stevens Consulting, ACCIONA and Freyssinet Australia
• Excellence in Innovation – Kangaroo Point Bridge, submitted by BESIX Watpac and Brisbane City Council
• Excellence in Asset Management and Maintenance – Manganuku Bridge Strengthening, submitted by Beca, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, Contech, Optimech International Ltd and Eastbridge Ltd.

This practical webinar unpacks the new cycling and micromobility planning tools from Austroads' recent report ‘Improving Austroads Guidance for Cycling and Micromobility Planning’ (AP-R724-25). This session is designed for transport practitioners looking to apply best practice principles in real-world projects.

Presenters explore the updated Cycling Level of Service (CLoS) tool, the All Ages and Abilities Facility Selection tool, and discuss practical approaches to road space reallocation, intersection design, and micromobility integration. Whether you're working in planning, design, or delivery, this webinar will help you navigate the tools and apply them confidently to uplift cycling outcomes across your network.

Movement and Place is a cross-cutting planning principle that that recognises streets and roads as both transport corridors and public spaces; supporting the flow of people and goods while also shaping the activity, built form and identity of places.

This webinar introduces the findings of the Austroads research project NEG6384 Movement and Place Guidance, which provides the foundation for updated and more unified Movement and Place content across the Austroads Guide to Traffic Management and related resources.

Through extensive stakeholder consultation and a review of leading national and international frameworks, the project identified gaps in current Austroads guidance. It also revealed the varied maturity levels of implementation across transport agencies in Australia and New Zealand, highlighting a critical opportunity to strengthen consistency, collaboration and innovation.

The report sets out a series of recommendations designed to update and streamline Movement and Place guidance, focusing on:

• Consistency: A shared language and core concepts across Austroads publications.
• Best Practice: Identification of proven tools and frameworks already in use.
• Clarity: Practical direction through case studies and real-world examples.

Whether you’re new to Movement and Place or working to embed it within policy, planning or project delivery, this webinar will help you understand how updated guidance can support more balanced, people-focused transport networks across the region.

In this webinar, Sjaan Koppel, winner of the Austroads-sponsored Women in Road Safety Award 2024, presents findings from an Australian study on the importance of correct seatbelt use during pregnancy for maternal and fetal safety in car crashes.

Sjaan discusses practical strategies to improve public health messaging, healthcare guidance, and vehicle design, providing valuable insights for road safety stakeholders and healthcare providers.

Inconsistency in the design of traffic barriers for bridges has been identified as a major issue in current practice throughout Australia and New Zealand. The need for standardised solutions has been recognised by road jurisdictions, consultants, and contractors. Key concerns include the determination of appropriate barrier performance levels, structural design criteria, the lack of standard barrier design details, guidance on retrofitting existing bridge barriers, bridge approach barriers and overpass bridge support protection.

To address this, Austroads commissioned a review of the Austroads Standardised Bridge Barrier Design Report AP-R445-13 1 based on current research, guidance, and standards. The project also aimed to verify compliance of bridge barrier designs and guidelines against the relevant Australian Standards that have been recently updated, and the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH). To achieve this a comprehensive literature review was undertaken, full scale crash testing was conducted and Finite Element Modelling created and calibrated.

This webinar covered:

• The project and updated Austroads Standardised Bridge Barrier Design Guideline
• The crash testing including Finite Element Modelling and full-scale crash test.