Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

Road infrastructure investments are currently planned and prioritised under what could be considered a ‘top-down’ process. Road agencies are typically funded through budgetary processes whereby road funding needs are mostly weighed against other budget priorities. However, when a road is a lifeline route – where there are limited transportation alternatives –the external impacts and costs imposed on both users and non-users from this road becoming inaccessible can be very significant.

These impacts can be difficult to both measure and value and, because of this, lifeline routes may have been historically underfunded. This is pertinent with climate change meaning that road managers are increasingly encountering problems managing natural hazard events on lifeline routes.

In light of this, Austroads has updated their Lifeline Risk Indicator Tool and migrated it to the Austroads website as an online-enabled tool. This tool has two purposes. First is to identify lifeline freight routes and allow road managers to establish a lifeline route network. Second is to rank investments in lifeline routes in terms of economic and social impacts.

This webinar, presented by Ben Mason, Dr Stacy Rendall and Valentin Perez, stepped through the process undertaken to update the tool and a practical run through of how the web-based Lifeline Risk Indicator Tool can be used.

Climate change is causing irreversible damage to communities, the economy and the environment, and it is imperative that strong and sustained action is taken to limit its future impacts. Extreme weather events are projected to become more frequent and intense, increasing the vulnerability of transport network assets and the communities they serve. Climate change impacts the ability of transport networks to provide lifeline infrastructure services that are crucial to the distribution and continuous flow of goods and services essential for human livelihoods, the functioning of society and economic prosperity.

The physical impacts of climate change are a common threat to Austroads transport agencies, and these will only grow in frequency and intensity as the climate changes, causing wide-spread disruption to transport network’s ability to deliver the levels of service expected.

Effective and responsible asset management is crucial for agencies to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Such practices balance performance, cost, and risk over time to ensure that transport network needs are met while maximising return on investment and providing the required levels of service.

This webinar presented the outcomes of Austroads’ recent project that developed practical guidance for asset managers to embed consideration of climate resilience into their asset management processes.

The project identified a number of key issues and developed practical recommendations for each of them covering asset management systems and processes, the asset lifecycle, criticality and vulnerability assessments, valuation of climate resilience measures and asset information management. The guidance will equip asset managers with knowledge to improve their processes and achieve their asset management objectives.

The webinar was presented by Upeshika Heenetigala, Jesse Sounness and Qindong Li. There were question and answer opportunities during the session.

Are you looking for an opportunity to work with Austroads to help Australian and New Zealand transport agencies deliver efficient, reliable, and safe mobility to their customers?

This webinar recording introduces new projects lined up for the 2024-25 financial year. Consultants interested in tendering for Austroads projects will find this session beneficial.

The session covers the Austroads tendering process with presentations from Austroads program managers:

• Ross Guppy, Program Manager Transport Infrastructure
• Michael Nieuwesteeg, Program Manager Road Safety and Design
• Amy Naulls, Program Manager Transport Network Operations
• Joanne Vanselow, Program Manager Future Vehicles and Technology, and Environment and Sustainability.

The webinar was moderated by Paul Davies, Austroads General Manager Programs.

Following extensive engagement with industry, representative specialist groups and transport agency stakeholders across Australia and New Zealand, Austroads has developed a guide to digital engineering.

The purpose of the guide is to assist transport agencies in Australia and New Zealand to deliver and operate their assets more effectively through obtaining better value and consistency in the application of digital engineering capability.

The guide communicates the need for a strategic approach to digital engineering alongside careful consideration and planning, clear engagement and support for its implementation.

This webinar, presented by Will Hackney and David Heins, provides an overview of the guide, including why it is needed, the structure of the guide, approaches to developing a strategy, roadmap, implementation planning, learning and development framework, and case studies.

The project aimed to assess and demonstrate the viability of incorporating other-than-truck tyres crumb rubber into asphalt applications from an operational and constructability standpoint. Following the initial part of the project that assessed the readiness of the tyre recycling and asphalt industries to handle crumb rubber from any sources of end-of-life tyres, the demonstration project in Tasmania showed no significant differences among the three asphalt mixes, suggesting that more attention should be directed towards crumb rubber produced from tyres other than trucks – some of which are only minimally recycled despite their significant volume.

This webinar, presented by Tony Aloisio from the Australian Flexible Pavement Association, will provide a detailed overview of the demonstration project in Tasmania and its findings.

Transport sector emissions are a significant and growing contributor to both Australia and New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Enabled transport sector emissions – those occurring as a result of use of transport systems (e.g. road user emissions) account for the largest portion of transport sector emissions. Beyond road user emissions, there are also significant emissions associated with direct transport agency operations and supply chain embodied emissions from the construction and maintenance of associated infrastructure.

The Decarbonisation Decision-Making Guidance (User Guide), and associated multi-criteria analysis (MCA) tool, aims to assist agencies and practitioners in the strategic prioritisation of emission reduction interventions. The User Guide and MCA tool are designed to work alongside (not replace) established decision-making processes such as business cases and cost-benefit analysis. The User Guide and MCA tool provide a systematic approach for assessing and prioritising interventions and facilitating an evidence-based decision-making process to prioritise the most impactful, cost-effective, and technologically viable options. The approach was developed in line with the Infrastructure Australia Guide to multi-criteria analysis – Technical guide of the Assessment Framework.

This webinar, presented by Nick Gallaugher and Georgia Harmey, provides an overview of the User Guide and MCA tool outlining the key concepts and process.

Transport infrastructure and systems are typically designed to withstand local weather events based on historical records of climate. However, historical climate data is no longer a reliable predictor of future impacts due to climate change. Extreme weather events are projected to become more frequent and intense, increasing the vulnerability of transport networks and the communities they serve.

Austroads has developed Climate Change and Natural Hazard Risk Assessment and Adaptation Planning Guidelines. The guidelines set out a framework for transport agencies to consider when undertaking climate change and natural hazard risk assessments and developing adaptation plans with examples provided throughout. The guidelines are intended to be flexible, guiding the application of both high-level and detailed risk assessments of physical and transition risks.

This webinar, presented by Allan Klindworth and Upeshika Heenetigala, will step through the process set out in the guidelines, highlighting key concepts with examples and supporting resources. There will be question and answer opportunities during the session.

Christchurch has developed over 75km of separated cycle facilities retrofitted across the road network. The Major Cycleway Programme has enabled Christchurch to become the leader for cycle infrastructure in New Zealand. The 2011 earthquakes experienced in Canterbury, New Zealand caused significant devastation and destruction across the city. This disaster was a catalyst for change and provided Christchurch an opportunity to rebuild new and create a new identity.

This webinar, presented by Emily Cambridge from Activate Urban and Jacob Bradbury from Christchurch City Council, takes you on the Christchurch journey towards becoming a cycle friendly city. This includes discussing The Share an Idea campaign which empowered the Christchurch community to share their dreams for the future of the city. The campaign attracted more than 100,000 ideas. The Major Cycleway network emerged as part of the city rebuild blueprint. This programme planned a network with over 100km of separated cycleways along 13 major routes across the city. In 2016, two consultant led consortia were established to complete the route designs. Now with 11 of the 13 routes nearing completion there has been exponential growth of people riding bikes over the past 5 years.

One of the completed routes has seen an average 30% growth in cyclists between 2019 and 2020. Recent surveys with users and residents also show strong support for the facility with 82% of cycle users surveyed stated that the new cycleway has encouraged them to make more trips by bike.

The webinar shares how the design team has progressed through route planning, design team consortia collaboration, construction and will touch on some lessons learnt along the journey.

Head-on crashes are a serious issue in Australia and New Zealand. Head-on crashes result in significantly higher trauma than most other crash types. The provision of an appropriate median or centreline treatment is important to mitigate the risk of head-on crashes.

In this webinar, Dr Rod Troutbeck, Jade Hogan and Jamie Robertson described the range of improvements from supportive treatments like pavement markings and audio-tactile line markings through to the use of flexible barriers in narrow medians as a primary treatment. The discussion and guidance centre on rural two-lane roads but also applicable to all roads. The recommended practices are based on both literature and case studies. 

The presenters introduced the crash modification factors developed for the hierarchy of approaches to address head-on crashes and the case studies that support these factors. The optimum solution is to provide a median barrier, however other treatments may be appropriate in certain circumstances depending on considerations including road function, space or resource constraints, and access requirements. The designer should start with the option that has the greatest Safe System alignment. It will need to be demonstrated that this option is not feasible before investigating and selecting an option with lower Safe System alignment are prioritised and other alternatives must be given lower emphasis.

The presenters discussed the implications for road designers including the treatment’s applicability, effectiveness and dimensions. The maintenance considerations and implications for other road users, including sight distance requirements were also discussed. 

By applying road safety knowledge to road projects throughout their lifecycle, road safety audits provide greater confidence to road authorities that potential and actual road safety risks are identified and can be mitigated.

Road safety auditors are currently managed individually by state and territory road agencies, leading to variability in training, accreditation, registration, and continuing professional development requirements across Australia and New Zealand.

Austroads members are committed to improving the consistency and quality of road safety audit practices across Australia and New Zealand and have agreed to implement a national framework to manage road safety auditors and road safety audit training providers. 

This webinar provided an overview of the national harmonisation project, including why it is needed, the anticipated benefits, what the national framework will look like, as well as project deliverables and timelines.

The webinar was presented by Michael Nieuwesteeg, Chris Koniditsiotis, Andrew Lee and Kellie Houlahan.

There were question and answer opportunities during the session.