Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

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 jurisdictional supplements to establish guidance that could be moved into the Guide.

The sessions focuses on a cross-jurisdictional platform for managing supplements within a jurisdiction and moving information from supplements to the Guide. The platform was developed with the input from the Project Control Group and the Road Design Task Force represented by Australian and New Zealand road agencies, and the Australian Local Government Association.

The platform uses a ‘push-pull” approach where Austroads looks to ‘pull’ information from the supplements, and the road agencies look for a means to ‘push’ information into the Guide. This approach aims to assist in minimising supplement content and harmonising material in the Guide.

The webinar was presented by Dr Rod Troutbeck, Dr Hafez Alavi, Mark Lenske and Phil Rosser.

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 explain how skills demand will form for road agencies over the coming decade, what will be the key threats to workforce capability in the roads sector, and what road agencies can do to respond to the challenges ahead.

The study identifies which jurisdictions are expected to experience capability gaps in the next five years and stresses the importance of implementing measures to attract and retain skills, particularly given competitive threats from rising activity in other sectors over the coming decade.

New to this iteration of the study is the provision of quantitative data through interactive dashboards which allow users to focus on specific skills and occupation profiles in each jurisdiction. These dashboards will be updated with new workforce data and forecasts through 2024 and 2025.

This webinar, presented by Adrian Hart and Thomas Creevey from Oxford Economics Australia, provides a summary of the results and findings of this research. The session covers the following:

• current breakdowns of the roads skilled workforce in Australia and New Zealand
• state of play and outlook for roads activities and skills demand
• insights from industry survey and interviews on existing capability concerns
• how the roads industry can respond positively to the workforce skills challenge
• what information the new dashboards contain and how they work.

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 intelligent technology providers, the Framework consists of a common set of infrastructure and rules administered by the Transport Certification Australia (TCA) on behalf of the Australian Government.

The Framework provides an ecosystem to manage relationships and interactions between producers, providers, and consumers. Encouraging innovation and competition, it enables a market of certified services and type-approved hardware from multiple telematics providers. This provides assurance to the road managers and regulators as they manage vehicle access on the road network for improved efficiency, safety and protection of critical infrastructure.

The Framework is recognised as world’s best practice and has been referenced by other countries as they navigate similar complexities around compliance, asset protection and community benefits.

This webinar is beneficial to practitioners and policy makers within the transport industry. It provides useful insights for the development of future vehicle management programs and shares practical lessons around the implementation of complex regulatory frameworks.

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 100,000 population.

Austroads has completed a project to provide information on known effective road safety interventions for regional and remote areas.The information is presented in two reports. The first is the research report and the second report, which is based on the research report, is a shorter practitioner-focussed report which provides succinct and easy-to-access information via factsheets on evidence-based effective interventions, a prioritisation framework, and evaluation framework.

The evidence-based findings from this project provide practical guidance for practitioners to effectively select, prioritise, implement and evaluate interventions to prevent road fatalities and serious injuries in regional and remote areas.

This webinar provides a background to and overview of the project; highlights from the literature review; an overview of the factsheets and how they have been structured; a summary of the prioritisation framework and its application; and a summary of the evaluation framework and its application.

The webinar is presented by Dr Tana Tan, Dr Lisa Wundersitz and Dr Chris Stokes.

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 (2008 to 2017), report against equivalents to the NRSS fatality indicators and analyse characteristics of the data, including matched and unmatched cases, cross-border flows, and the impact of data linkage on estimates. Ethics and data custodian approvals enabled data to be collected from all jurisdictions except Western Australia.

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.

Webinar presenters Professor James Harrison and Associate Professor Angela Watson explain the method used in Stage 2 of the project and provide a detailed overview of the project findings.

Between December 2023 and September 2024, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone will close their 3G networks to make room for new, faster services. The 3G network shutdown will affect vital equipment and services across the road transport sector.

Devices that rely on 3G will no longer function and need to be upgraded or replaced to continue operating. Commonly affected devices include:

• telematics and vehicle/asset tracking devices installed in heavy and light vehicles, as well as general assets such as trailers, generators, etc.
• traffic management signs used in school zones, intersections and freeways
• weather systems and stations
• alarms/building entry
• devices that incorporate gateway or mesh backhaul
• personal Emergency Response (PER) systems
• phones and tablets.

Businesses, government, and industry are being urged to commence their transition immediately to avoid lapses in vital equipment and services across the road transport sector. Early transition and planning are vital given the large number of devices affected by the shutdown. The migration process can take months, and timing is dependent on the number of affected devices and the availability of installers.

New Zealand is also shutting down their 3G network. The country will close their services between August next year and the end of 2025.

This webinar, organised by Austroads and Transport Certification Australia (TCA), provides high-level information on the impacts of the Australian 3G shutdown and what local government and transport industry need to do to prepare for the transition.

Presenters are David McIntosh, Telstra’s National Telematics Domain Lead, Michael Reynolds, Head of Network Products, Programs and Services at Optus, Mark Joselin, Followmont Transport Compliance Manager, Adam Ritzinger, Chief Technical Officer at Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia, and John Gordon, Manager Strategic Development at TCA.

Transport for NSW (TfNSW) is transitioning from Interim On-Board Mass (OBM) management to Smart OBM. All Performance Based Standards (PBS) vehicle operators with mass monitoring as a condition of access will need to transition to the more advanced telematics technology by 1 June 2024.

Smart OBM systems capture axle mass measurements as digital records and share the data with relevant road managers in a secure and standardised way.

The changes aim to harmonise the use of Smart OBM systems for mass monitoring of heavy vehicles in New South Wales with other states.

The changes will require the operators of eligible PBS vehicles to have Smart OBM systems fitted to their vehicles. Additionally, those vehicles must be enrolled in an applicable scheme of the Telematics Monitoring Application (TMA), and their Smart OBM systems paired with an Application Service Provider (ASP) certified by Transport Certification Australia (TCA).

This webinar provides an overview of the upcoming changes and how they will affect PBS drivers travelling to and within the state.

Webinar attendees are taken through the steps required for signing up to Smart OBM or transitioning from Interim OBM to Smart OBM.

Presenters also talk about the importance of Smart OBM for the road network and how mass data from Smart OBM is being used by road managers.

The session is beneficial to PBS operators who operate their fleet in NSW or travel across the border, ASPs seeking information to update their customers and road authorities looking to better understand the use of Smart OBM data.

The webinar is presented by Gavin Hill, General Manager of Strategy and Delivery at TCA, and Brett Graham, Senior Manager for Road Access at TfNSW.

The asphalt industry is rapidly evolving, and it is widely accepted that prescriptive specifications are not necessarily well suited to take full advantage of the benefits that new and innovative technologies can provide. There is therefore a desire to develop a national performance-based asphalt specification that would allow asset owners and asphalt suppliers to take full advantage of the enhanced performance characteristics of current and emerging asphalt technologies.

This webinar, presented by Joe Grobler, provides an overview of a recently completed Austroads project undertaken to harmonise test methods used in asphalt performance specifications. The project developed three new Austroads asphalt test methods and updated several existing methods for use in future performance-based specifications.

The project also collated available flexural modulus, fatigue resistance and permanent deformation resistance test data of locally manufactured asphalt mixes to inform the future development of these performance limits.

The presenter talks about the background to the new test methods and the indicative performance limits established for modulus, fatigue and permanent deformation resistance.

This work builds on the results of the previous Austroads project that developed a national performance-based asphalt specification framework.

Trials of automated vehicle (AV) technology are undertaken to research and develop the technology, understand the supporting regulatory and operational frameworks required, and prepare for wide-scale adoption of the technology. Governments across Australia and New Zealand have expressed an interest in maximising the value of trials through improved evaluation and knowledge sharing. To meet this need, Austroads has prepared guidance for the evaluation and reporting of AV trials. This guidance seeks to improve consistency in evaluation and reporting as an enabler and contributor to improved knowledge sharing across jurisdictions.

The guidelines set out the three key stages associated with evaluation and reporting. The scoping and planning stage helps with understanding the objectives and purpose of the trial and the associated evaluation, along with developing a plan to reach the evaluation objectives. For the conducting stage, guidance is provided on undertaking the trial, based on the trial plan, with necessary adjustments, to gather and analyse findings. Finally for the reporting and dissemination stage, the guidelines provide advice on reporting on the key findings from the evaluation and disseminating the report broadly.

Austroads has recently completed a project to identify best practice for road tunnel wall panels and finishes to ensure the products achieve performance, access, maintenance, and durability requirements. The best practice research provided through this project aims to add value to tunnel operators over the life cycle of the assets by facilitating ease of maintenance access for regular inspections, and meeting durability requirements.

In this webinar, Tony Peglas and Georgia O’Connor gave an overview of the research undertaken into best practice solutions for road tunnel wall panels and finishes, including outcomes of the stakeholder consultation, a detailed current practice review, a literature review, and the development of specification framework.