Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

Internal combustion engine vehicles are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and New Zealand. Encouraging the public to utilise low and zero emission vehicles (LZEVs), such as battery electric vehicles will contribute to creating a more sustainable road transport system.

As the number of LZEVs is expected to rise, there will be a growing demand for charging infrastructure. Increasing availability of such infrastructure will also encourage the uptake of LZEVs; however, currently there is little guidance available to road agencies to assist them in managing the installation of charging infrastructure within road reserves.

This webinar with David Silvester and Norman Cheung presents new Austroads guidance to help agencies manage the planning, installation, and operation of charging infrastructure for non-commercial passenger vehicles with battery-electric or hybrid propulsion within the road reserve or road related areas.

The guidelines draw on the latest international and national experience and case studies and can be used by agencies in the implementation of consistent charging facility practices to reduce costs, improve the road environment, road safety, network operations, and LZEV driver experience.

The webinar covers guidance on managing the life cycle of the facilities, including planning, design, operations, interoperability, maintenance, and decommissioning.

To enable collaboration and the adoption of best-practice approaches across jurisdictions, Austroads is undertaking a multi-stage project to standardise and automate ways of recording and sharing road asset information.

The benefits of standardised collection of road asset data and the availability of a platform to store or exchange data include:

• direct savings to road agencies through reduced information management costs, including the opportunity to sustain an open and competitive market of data collectors
• reducing the time needed to train new staff and contractors
• facilitating better decision making on road investment and expenditure through consistent asset data
• facilitating the implementation of national reforms, including Heavy Vehicle Road Reform and automated vehicle reform
• providing consistent asset data to accommodate innovative technology in the road sector (e.g., LIDAR technology, building information modelling (BIM), and digital twinning).

This webinar, presented by Chris Koniditsiotis, Angus Draheim, Tom Magarey, David Deacon and Geoffrey Paton, presents an overview of the implementation of the Austroads Road Asset Data Standard and demonstrates a knowledge sharing platform that is being developed for road managers to use to report activities, collaborate and share insights.

The proposed National Access Framework for Heavy Vehicles is a principles-based strategic policy document which highlights the role of state and local government road managers in managing heavy vehicles access on the road network. It is also proposed to establish a national Access Working Group to deliver a targeted national Access Work Program based on the Framework's principles.

In this session, presenters – Pascal Felix, Stuart Maxwell and Sanjiv Sathiah, talk about the elements of the framework and how they will potentially benefit state and local road managers and industry.

Road agencies are increasingly utilising various business intelligence tools to collect, process and analyse large amounts of asset management data from internal and external systems. Harnessed information is used to maintain road assets and improve the efficiency of their performance.

In this webinar data practitioners from the Tasmanian Department of State Growth, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads and Main Roads Western Australia talk about their experience in using digital data analytics tools for improving the accessibility and visualisation of data in road asset management.

Norah Weatherby’s presentation focuses on the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads’ asset information systems and analytics platforms that are critical to supporting Queensland’s road network.

David Deacon shares how the Tasmanian Department of State Growth’ Roads Asset Management Branch works with data to enable effective decision-making, break down silos and connect people.

Shaan Ciantar, from Main Roads Western Australia, talks about Power BI’s Pavelytics, an interactive app that displays relevant data to asset and maintenance managers on selected road sections. Shaan’s presentation goes through the need for such an app, how it was scoped for maximum usability, the data-design process, and finally a demonstration of the app in use.

Nicholas Archer presents a novel approach to mapping road data for Main Roads Western Australia using a custom Power BI visual and web service.

Road agencies increasingly recognise the value of coordination and cooperation with public transport operators in responding to road and transport incidents, as it helps support a more holistic and integrated multimodal approach to minimising traveller disruption.

Austroads has developed guidance for road-focused agencies to improve their capabilities in the management and resolution of an unplanned incident that negatively impacts, or has the potential to impact, the normal operation of more than one transport mode.

This webinar, presented by David Yee and Andrew Somers, provides an overview of the multimodal incident management (MMIM) research findings and agency guidance. The guidance examines worldwide MMIM methods and practices, and identifies key themes and principles for agencies to consider in planning and developing their MMIM capabilities. These themes include vision and strategy for MMIM, coordination and cooperation, integrated operations centres, leverage existing practices, integrated traveller information, traveller demand management and network load balancing, alternative transport services, multimodal data exchange, MMIM tools, and intelligence and decision making.

The webinar also offers advice on how to improve MMIM capabilities using a MMIM Capability Framework that consists of three components:

• a set of MMIM capabilities
• a MMIM Capability Maturity Model
• guidance

The capabilities are the foundational abilities that should be developed. The Capability Maturity Model is a maturity scale for MMIM capabilities that can be used by agencies to set future targets and to measure against. The guidance advises how to use the Capability Maturity Model to plan and improve MMIM capabilities.

Austroads is encouraging drivers, employers and trainers to have their say on proposed changes to heavy vehicle driver licensing in Australia.

The changes are documented in a Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (C-RIS) which seeks feedback on proposed changes to the National Heavy Vehicle Driver Competency Framework. The Framework was endorsed by ministers in 2011 but has only been implemented in four states and territories.

At the request of transport ministers, Austroads has been undertaking an extensive program of work to review and improve the NHVDCF. 
Austroads’ review aims to deliver a harmonised Australian licence training and assessment framework that produces safe and competent heavy vehicle drivers and reflects the current and future needs of heavy vehicle operators and the future freight task.

Visit austroads.info/c-ris to download the C-RIS, access fact sheets and videos summarising the proposals and provide feedback.

In Australia and New Zealand, bituminous binders used in road construction are tested prior to use to ensure they will perform satisfactorily during road construction/maintenance. Some of the Australian Standards that are used for these tests have not been updated for 25 years which can make it difficult for testing laboratories to adhere to them.

In this webinar Dr Robert Urquhart presents an overview of an Austroads project which provided expert technical input into the revision of seven Australian Standards – four bituminous emulsion, one polymer modified binder and two cutback bitumen related Australian Standard test methods. They were revised by the Australian Standards Committee CH-025 ‘Bitumen and related products for roadmaking’ between August 2020 and September 2022.

Following topics are covered in the session:

• the process used to update an Australian Standard
• the main changes to each of the seven Standards
• the status of revision of each Standard

Road tunnels are an important element of the transport infrastructure, requiring significant resources and energy to construct, operate and maintain. Consequently, they are potentially a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution.

Practices and methods that promote the sustainability of road tunnels are, therefore, necessary for alleviating the pressure they exert on scarce resources and the natural environment. However, sustainability is not about what should be done for the environment, it is something that must be done to preserve the quality of all life on the planet. It is particularly important for a road tunnel compared to a road at grade as a road tunnel has a substantially higher carbon footprint, both during its construction and the continuous operation of its systems throughout its operating life.

Every state and territory in Australia, as well as New Zealand, has committed to net zero emissions by 2050. In this context, responsible organisations have an obligation to reduce the sustainability impacts of delivering and operating road tunnels whose asset life is expected to extend beyond 2050.

In this webinar, Georgia O’Connor, Les Louis and Tony Peglas give an overview of the research undertaken to include updates for sustainability in the four parts of the Austroads Guide to Road Tunnels (AGRT).

The research presented in the session will provide owners, operators, designers and those constructing tunnels with guidance on how to achieve more sustainable outcomes at each stage of a road tunnel’s life cycle.

Governments, transport agencies, and industry have identified the need to reduce waste going to landfill and increase the use of recycled materials to achieve more sustainable development and improve outcomes for communities. The latest update to the Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4E: Recycled Materials covers the advancement in material re-use that has occurred in the 13 years since the 2009 version of the guide was published.

There is wide concern around the misuse of recycled materials in road construction, and it is generally agreed that roads should not be viewed as alternative avenues for waste disposal. A protocol has been established that follows a step-by-step process for quantifying the effect of using novel, post-consumer and industrial wastes or recycled materials in asphalt pavements and sprayed seal surfacings.

This webinar covers the following key updates made to the Austroads Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4E: Recycled Materials:

• Latest and emerging recycled materials utilised within pavements and information on their use in specific applications as well as associated issues, risks, and considerations.
• The developed holistic assessment framework for the use of recycled materials in road pavements.
• The developed protocol for asphalt and sprayed seals that establishes a step-by-step process for quantifying the effect of using novel, post-consumer and industrial wastes or recycled materials.

The webinar is presented by Phil Herrington from WSP New Zealand, Brody Clark from WSP Australia with participation of Grant Bosma from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and Mike Pickering from the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Austroads has updated the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers (AGRD Part 6) introducing new sections on the fundamentals of safety barrier systems and design advice for other road safety devices.

This webinar, presented by Dr Rod Troutbeck and Richard Fanning, focuses on the updated Section 6 providing an overview of the process to design the installation of a safety barrier.

The session describes the actions for defining the context of the installation including choosing an appropriate containment level. It also outlines the preliminary design tasks of selecting a barrier and defining its lateral and longitudinal position.

The aspects of detailed design are also described, including the installation refinements, selecting the appropriate terminal or transition and the structural design of a proposed barrier. Finally, the webinar briefly describes the documentation of the design.