Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

Austroads has recently published the final report for the three-year project Data to Support the Heavy Vehicle Road Reform, which has investigated a number of different aspects of the requirements, gaps, and opportunities for supplying infrastructure data suitable for supporting a future heavy vehicle cost recovery and investment process. It represents a total of seven years of work from 2013 to 2020.

The project explored issues related to the supply of data on freight routes required by the Heavy Vehicle Road Reform. This included: how to measure the level of service (LOS) of freight routes, mechanisms for obtaining nationally harmonised data about road assets, and providing insight into the nature, quality and consistency of road-related data across Australian jurisdictions.

This webinar, presented by Ulysses Ai, provides a summary of the project’s main activities and key learnings including:

• Development of the Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Rating as a concise measure of LOS for freight routes.
• Development of the National Asset Register and learnings from processes seeking to obtain asset data from local governments.
• A study of candidates for a national base map for road-related data and guidance on subsequent processes for data-matching.
• An analysis of inconsistencies in traffic data.
• Investigation of practices across Australian jurisdictions for expenditure reporting data, pavement deterioration modelling, and maintenance data records.

The increasing pace of change of technology brings considerable promise of more data, of a higher quality, captured for a lower cost. This has the potential to improve the asset management of roads by enabling better decision making and providing a more complete picture of asset performance.

These benefits, however, are not automatic. For asset managers, it can be difficult to know what technology is available and how the benefits compare to costs. There is also often considerable friction in moving to new approaches as existing processes and systems are tailored for the status quo. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is confidence in moving from an existing approach to having trust in the unknown.

In response to this need to understand the emerging technologies available, the cost-effectiveness of these technologies, and the implications of transitioning from existing to new approaches, Austroads has developed a research report on next generation data collection technologies for road pavement assets.

With specific reference to road pavement assets, this webinar takes attendees through:

• The key themes across the data required to inform asset management decisions.
• The current state of data collection technologies.
• The interconnected ecosystem of emerging data collection technologies.
• A structured framework for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of emerging data collection technologies.
• Insights from the application of the evaluation framework and implications for future approaches to data collection.

Presented by David Jansen, Susan Chamberlain, Ella Hingston, Dr Colin Kemp and Trevor Chiang.

This is a final session in the series of three webinars based on the Austroads report Prolonging the Life of Road Assets Under Increasing Demand: A Framework and Tools for Informing the Development and Justification of Asset Preservation and Renewal.

It is presented by Tim Martin, Tyrone Toole and Qindong Li, and explains the broad framework and the economic and customer centred basis for justifying appropriate levels of investment in road asset preservation and renewal. Examples include those which impact strategic, network level decisions and supporting policies and processes.

This is the second session in a series to present the findings of Prolonging the Life of Road Assets Under Increasing Demand: A Framework and Tools for Informing the Development and Justification of Asset Preservation and Renewal.

The webinar, presented by Tyrone Toole, Dr Tim Martin, Ranita Sen, Qindong Li and Liam Terris, explains the framework, tools and case studies in detail, and how asset management practitioners can apply these in their day-to-day work.

The emphasis is on reinforcing good practice and its justification and how different preservation and renewal options can be evaluated.

It also provides a detailed introduction into the Pavement Life-cycle Costing tool, followed by worked examples through the presentation of several case studies.

Currently, most Austroads member agencies rely on their unique technical specifications for the delivery of roadworks and bridge projects. In many cases, these specifications have been developed over a number of years in consultation with local industry and suppliers.

While it is recognised that there will always be some requirements that will only apply to a single jurisdiction, standardising specifications (and the associated test methods) has the potential to improve work processes for road agencies, suppliers and contractors.

To increase efficiency for road agencies and industry and optimise compliance with contract requirements, 14 technical specifications have been published for all Austroads member agencies to use for the construction of roadworks and bridgeworks. These specifications are suitable for use with any general conditions of contract, including design and construct contracts. They are expected to be used in conjunction with supplementary local or contract specific requirements.

This webinar, presented by Richard Edwards, takes participants through the technical specifications development process and provides an overview of the structure and layout adopted for the specifications.

The Engineering Guideline to Bridge Asset Management was developed to provide specific asset management guidance for road bridges. The guideline promotes an engineering approach (engineering principles, knowledge, experience and modelling tools) as being the only robust method for understanding the current and future, condition and needs of a bridge network.

The guideline defines best practice asset management for bridges over their lifecycle in a manner that will provide a transparent link between investment and outcomes. It includes a specific and detailed asset management framework for bridges.

This webinar, presented by Barry Wright, Torill Pape and Peter Shaw, takes participants through the development of the guideline and provides an overview of the key principles and learnings contained in the guideline.

This webinar, presented by Adrian Bridge on 31 July 2020, provides an overview of a new procurement tool and its application to a road infrastructure project, the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing in Queensland.

The tool has been designed to significantly advance value for money in the delivery of infrastructure projects.

This webinar, faciliated by Tyrone Toole, Phil Hunt and Ranita Sen on 17 June 2020, focuses on the life-cycle costing framework and a suite of practical examples to demonstrate how to assess the best use of available marginal and non‑standard materials in sealed roads in different geographical and climactic conditions in Australia.

This webinar, presented on 15 April 2020, provides an overview of the key components which influence fit-for-purpose material selection for low to medium volume regional and rural roads.

It was presented by Mick Savage, Zia Rice and Tyrone Toole.

This webinar provides an overview of the life cycle management of local sealed and unsealed  roads. It highlights the Austroads Guides and the AUS-SPEC national local government specification system which assist local government practitioners to design, construct and maintain sealed and unsealed roads.

The webinar was presented on 17 February 2020 by Mick Savage and Nandini Mehta.