Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

This webinar gives an overview of an Austroads pilot project to improve the measurement and reporting of serious injury crashes.

It covers

• background and objectives of the study
• the data provision, preparation and analysis
• statistical results such as non-fatal hospitalised roads injury cases
• conclusions from Stage 1 of the project and recommendations.

The webinar was presented on 4 April 2019 by Professor James Harrison and Dr Angela Watson.

This webinar provides an overview of Infrastructure Risk Rating - a simple road assessment methodology designed to assess road safety risk at a network level, primarily as an input to the speed limit setting process.

It covers:

• case studies demonstrating speed management interventions that were successfully applied in Australia and New Zealand
• good practice guidance for engagement and consultation to effectively implement speed management interventions
• the Infrastructure Risk Rating Tool which allows Infrastructure Risk Rating to be calculated for a road segment by selecting key road and roadside attributes
• recommendations towards the implementation of the findings of the project.

The webinar was presented on 26 March 2019 by Haris Zia and Dale Harris.

This webinar provides an overview of the new Guide to Road Safety Part 6: Managing Road Safety Audits.

It covers

• the defined roles, requirements and expectations of the Project Sponsor, Project Manager and Audit Team Leader towards an optimal outcome
• where road safety audits sit within contemporary operating environments and contexts and how we can best embed and integrate the road safety audit process within Safe System thinking
• how findings (risks) and treatment options can be categorised by the extent of their ‘alignment’ to the Safe System
• the next steps - the consolidation of the new Part 6 (management) and Part 6A (implementation)

The webinar was presented on 21 March 2019 by Paul Hillier, Kenn Beer and Joseph Le.

This webinar provides an update on Austroads’ project to develop the data to support the Heavy Vehicle Road Reforms.

It covers

• the background of the heavy vehicle road reforms
• how the Heavy Vehicle Infrastructure Rating is calculated and used
• online tools that have made the process of gathering data, producing ratings and sharing results easy and practical
• current efforts to include local government roads in the asset register.

The webinar was presented on 14 March 2019 by Ulysses Ai.

This webinar provides an overview of Austroads’ long-term pavement performance study.

It covers

• establishment and long-term monitoring of an in-service pavement test section
• the develop pavement performance road deterioration (RD) and works effects (WE) models
• methodology, benefits and outcomes of the study.

The webinar was presented on 7 March 2019 by Lith Choummanivong and Dr Tim Martin.

This webinar provides an overview of the benefits associated with passing lanes for guidance for practitioners.

It covers:

• safety impacts of passing lanes, particularly statistics on crash rate reductions, speed and headway, and overtaking behaviour
• operational impacts of passing lanes on average speed and per cent time spent following (PTSF)
• road user perception of passing lane impacts and valuation of level-of-service (LOS)
• findings of the Austroads project.

The webinar was presented on 5 March 2019 by Dr Ian Espada and Dr Chris Stokes. 

This webinar presents an overview of the barriers to driver licensing program access experienced by Indigenous people and ideas on potential common underpinnings for future policy and program design, data collection and reporting.

It covers:

• why improving access to driver training and licensing programs for Indigenous people is important
• what the literature and jurisdictional experience say about what works, what doesn't and why and what this suggests about future program and policy priorities and engagement of other harder to engage groups
• a program logic approach to achieving future program improvement and national coherence
• a framework for the adoption of national policy principles to underpin program design and implementation 
• a proposed national minimum data set to support program assessment and improvement.

The webinar was presented on 27 February 2019 by Paul Rajan.

This webinar provides an overview of the Austroads Guidelines for the Provision of Heavy Vehicle Rest Area Facilities.

It covers:

• the types of heavy vehicle rest areas
• assessing the need and prioritisation for heavy vehicle rest areas
• principles for good heavy vehicle rest area design
• tools used to communicate rest opportunities to drivers.

The webinar was presented on 14 February 2019, by David Green and Mandi Mees.

This webinar provides an overview of a Safe System review of the Austroads Guide to Traffic Management (AGTM).

It covers:

• where there is an opportunity to further embed Safe System into the AGTM series based on recent research
• the new and revised content to address many of the safe system gaps in the AGTM to strengthen the guidance relating to treatments and their likely effectiveness in aligning with Safe System philosophy
• recommendations towards the implementation of the findings.

The webinar was presented on 7 February 2019 by Paul Durdin and Dave Smith.

This webinar provides an overview of Austroads' study that proposes a ride quality index of roads for heavy vehicles, a heavy vehicle equivalent of the International Roughness Index (IRI) for cars.

It covers:
• the background of the study
• a proposed index for objectively measuring the ride quality of freight vehicles
• the design and conditions of roads influencing subjective perceptions of safety and comfort.

The webinar was presented on 31 January 2019 by Ulysses Ai.