AustroadsNews | December 2016 

Welcome to the December edition of AustroadsNews.  If you have been forwarded this email you can subscribe here to receive future updates.

Contents

• Insights into Australian and New Zealand road congestion
• New guidance for efficient and safe smart motorways
• Planning for future road users' needs
• Realising a 100-year bridge design life
• Traffic operations guidance updated
• Provide feedback on the Data Standard for Road Management and Investment in Australia and New Zealand
• A step closer to national automated vehicle trials
• Establishing a national weigh-in-motion network
• Improving the maintenance of ITS assets
• Australian transport facts
• BITRE Road Safety Reports
• Austroads Bridge Conference 2017:Last chance for early bird rates
• Upcoming Workshops + Conferences

Insights into Australian and New Zealand road congestion

Austroads has published the Congestion and Reliability Review which measures levels and identifies key causes of congestion across major cities in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).

The study found that ANZ cities perform in line with international comparators on the three key measures of average speed, travel time delay and reliability.

The findings are based on an analysis of Google Maps data for 600km of roads for each major Australian city, enabling analysis of travel time along different road segments. The analysis was based on two months of data, comprising of 1km long road segments, with data points taken every 15 minutes, to calculate the six key congestion measures outlined in the report. An econometric analysis was then undertaken to provide insight into the drivers of network performance.

This new approach has provided some ground-breaking insights into congestion performance and causes for Australian and New Zealand cities.

Congestion performance is correlated with population, so the biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, perform worst overall. In these cities, road users need to allow an average 50% more time than free flow to complete their journeys during peak hours, when average speeds are as low as 29 km/hr and 34 km/hr respectively.

Brisbane (52 km/hr) and Perth (58km/hr) have better performance, while Auckland congestion performance is similar to Melbourne, despite having a lower population.

Adelaide has the slowest average travel speed, but higher reliability, reflecting a road network with fewer motorways. Darwin, Hobart and Wellington have low levels of congestion, with Canberra the best performing city overall, achieving average speeds over 60 km/hr.

While weekday morning and afternoon peaks exhibit time delays up to 40%, weekend travel also faces congestion with delays up to 30% at the mid-day peak in Sydney.

The causes of congestion are different in each city; most urban congestion (88-98%) is a consequence of recurrent causes (a routine imbalance of the number of road users and road capacity), while the remaining 2-12% is due to non-recurrent causes which include incidents, planned events and weather.

Effective action on road congestion is needed to avoid it becoming a drag on the economy, living standards and quality of life.

The study recommends that road and transport agencies invest in a portfolio of interventions including integrated land and transport planning, as well as relatively low cost, high benefit cost ratio interventions such as smart ramp metering and optimising traffic signals.

For each road corridor, both demand and supply interventions are important, and a program of multiple intervention projects tailored to the specific congestion problem is most likely to optimise the investment in new road capacity. In particular, detailed pre-investment metrics and post-implementation analytics are required to ensure that the multi-billion dollar investments are made wisely.

Congestion mitigation strategies are on the cusp of major change over the next 10 years, due to increasingly intelligent technology embedded in vehicles and road infrastructure. The report recommends that ANZ road agencies provide a platform of regulation and technology that can support adoption of this innovation from the private sector.

The full report and summary can be downloaded after logging into the Austroads publications website.

New guidance for efficient and safe smart motorways

Austroads has published new guidance to support the delivery of safe and efficient smart motorways. It primarily comprises guidance on the selection, design and layout of ITS elements within a smart motorway project.

‘Smart motorways’ (also referred to as managed motorways) is the term used to describe motorways that have information, communications and control systems incorporated in and alongside the road. These technology-based systems are deployed to actively manage traffic flows and improve road capacity and safety, as well as deliver other important outcomes for road users such as better travel reliability and real-time traveller information.

Smart motorways comprise an integrated package of intelligent transport systems (ITS) interventions. This includes coordinated ramp signalling, speed and lane use management, traveller information (using variable message signs) and network intelligence (such as from vehicle detection equipment).

The Guide to Smart Motorways promotes operations-led design, recognising that effective operations are critical to achieving successful outcomes and that operational needs must be considered right from the start of the project.

The Transport and Infrastructure Council's National Policy Framework for Land Transport Technology: Action Plan: 2016-2019 requires Australian Governments to explore the costs and benefits of the broader adoption of new safety and traffic management technologies, including managed motorways.

The Guide describes the benefits of investing in smart motorways and provides an overview of the core smart motorway elements. It then provides detailed information relating to:

• the general process and principles for smart motorway planning and design 
• principles of motorway traffic flow and analysis to inform problem identification and options assessment
• warrants for selection of appropriate smart motorway elements and operational strategies for application to a specific section of route
• foundation systems that support smart motorway operations, such as power and communications infrastructure
• ITS layout design and high-level functional requirements (i.e. the design of the traffic management interface with road users)
• provision of an emergency lane and associated operational strategies to manage safety where there is no emergency lane on a full- or part-time basis
• management of the arterial road-motorway interface.

The Guide was written by Katharine Boddington, Dr Ian Espada and David Nash from the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB). The project was managed by Marco Morgante, Roads and Maritime Services NSW. 

Austroads members can download PDF versions of the Guides at no charge. This includes all state and territory road agencies and local councils in Australia and New Zealand.

To request your user login and password for free access please send an email from your work email address to austroads@austroads.com.au.

Planning for future road users' needs

Austroads has published the results of a project to identify the asset management needs and level of service (LOS) requirements of future non-freight road users.

Levels of service for asset management generally refers to the condition of roadways and roadside assets; a letter is often assigned to grade the LOS of an asset with A being the best and F the worst.

Preliminary work reviewed overseas and Australian work in the area, and established definitions and terminology. This informed the development of a LOS framework and a questionnaire to investigate users’ views on key issues.

The survey, conducted in Australia and New Zealand with 1,920 participants, identified the following key issues that should be considered when defining a LOS for non-freight customers:

• The highest importance ratings were given to road condition, road signs, driving on wet roads, line markings and reflectors, and road width, all with 97% or more ratings of ‘very important’ or ‘important’.
• The highest acceptability ratings were given to road signs (91% acceptable or better), line markings and reflectors (84%), safety barriers (82%), and road width (80%).
• The highest acceptability ratings for pedestrian facilities were personal security (80% acceptable or better), enough space for pedestrians (78%), distance from motor vehicles (77%), and convenient routes to destinations.
• There were only small regional differences in the importance ratings, but metropolitan respondents gave higher acceptability ratings than did regional or remote respondents, except for issues such as congestion and rest areas (for road attributes) and rest points with seating (for pedestrian facilities).
• The small differences in the importance ratings given across metropolitan, inner regional and outer regional/remote areas means that it should be possible to develop one LOS framework that covers metropolitan and regional roads.

The report suggests the following steps as a possible guide to develop a customer‑focussed LOS:

1. Decide on the priority of all the possible user needs that will be included in the LOS framework.
2. Review these options and decide on the steps required to develop an acceptability function for each of the high-priority needs.
3. Undertake empirical studies of the type indicated to establish suitable acceptability functions.
4. Allocate LOS grades to each of the needs based on the acceptability functions.
5. Decide on the operational targets to be adopted for the different road categories; road user panels or stakeholder representatives may be helpful in this process.

Steps 1 to 3 could be undertaken by individual agencies, but they constitute a major undertaking which would benefit from a unified approach. Step 4 could either be undertaken at an agency level, or at a collective level, while Step 5 is clearly to be undertaken at the individual agency level.

Realising a 100-year bridge design life

Austroads has published the results of a four year project investigating durability issues that affect the service life of reinforced concrete bridges located on the coast or in saline soils.

Reinforced concrete bridges in these aggressive environments are designed for a 100-year service life, but they start to deteriorate after only 30 years.

Bridge elements such as piles, pile caps and columns, are very expensive and sometimes impractical to replace once they suffer major deterioration. Therefore, ensuring their long-term durability beyond 100 years is crucial.

The project is detailed in two reports; an extensive literature review and the results of experimental work.

The literature review suggests that realising a service life of beyond 100 years in an aggressive environment can be achieved by:

• increasing concrete cover thickness
• using appropriate protective surface coatings
• isolating concrete from the aggressive environment by appropriate encasement
• installing cathodic protection or cathodic prevention
• using corrosion resistant materials, such as appropriate varieties of stainless steel
• using high performance concrete mixes
• neutralising acidic soils
• carefully supervising all aspects of the design and construction phases.

The research found gaps in the available knowledge including:

• uncertainties in terms of accuracy of the carbonation rate and chloride diffusion coefficient of concrete, which need to be addressed through further research
• uncertainties in models for the prediction of time to the appearance of detectable damage and time of failure
• the long-term tolerance of stainless steel reinforcing materials to high chloride contents in concrete, particularly that of new low-Ni varieties, which is not well-established and requires further research.

Appropriate concrete ingredients and steel reinforcement materials and concrete mix designs, as well as testing parameters, were selected for experimental work to address the concerns mentioned above.

The experimental work comprised investigations into concrete deterioration mechanisms and their mitigation, including corrosion of steel reinforcement as influenced by chloride diffusion into concrete, carbonation of concrete, corrosion resistance of stainless steel, alkali-aggregate reaction and sulfate resistance of concrete.

The research indicates that the long‑term deterioration of concrete ingredients can be avoided and appropriate grades of stainless steel provide very high resistance to chloride‑induced corrosion under highly aggressive conditions. Careful selection of materials and appropriate levels of supervision and workmanship in the manufacture of concrete elements and on-site practices could achieve a 100-year design life for bridges in aggressive environments.

Report links:

Realising 100-year Bridge Design Life in an Aggressive Environment: Review of the Literature

Realising 100-year Design Life of Bridge Structures in an Aggressive Environment: Experimental Work

Traffic operations guidance updated

Austroads has published the third edition of the Guide to Traffic Management Part 9: Traffic Operations.

The Guide provides practitioners with guidance on the day-to-day operations supporting the provision of services to road network users. These activities include the operation of traffic signal systems, congestion management, freeway/motorway management systems, incident management and traveller information systems. The Guide addresses the need for and operation of these systems and others from the perspective of the user services they deliver.

This third edition the Guide has added materials on smart motorways, traffic signal techniques to support network operation planning and references to cooperative intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS). More specific amendments include pedestrian protection, pedestrian push buttons, single point urban intersections, diamond diverging interchanges, bicycle detection, pedestrian countdown timers, filtering through opposing traffic, and roundabouts.

This edition was prepared by Dr Ian Espada, ARRB Group and project managed by Phillip Blake, Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure South Australia .

Austroads members can download PDF versions of the Guides at no charge. This includes all state and territory road agencies and local councils in Australia and New Zealand.

To request your user login and password for free access please send an email from your work email address to austroads@austroads.com.au.

Provide feedback on the Data Standard for Road Management and Investment in Australia and New Zealand

Austroads has published a draft of the second version of the Data Standard for Road Management and Investment in Australia and New Zealand with an invitation to all stakeholders to provide comment.

The draft builds on Version 1 of the Data Standard released in November 2016 and includes:

• improvements to the Works and Costs, Performance and Condition function groups
• new function groups for Risk, Resilience, Utilisation and Criticality.

While you are welcome to provide feedback on the entire document, the project steering committee will be focused on finalising the new and improved function groups. 

All feedback will be compiled for discussion, but comments relating to content outside the new and improved function groups are likely to be actioned at a later stage of development.

The Austroads Road Data Standard Project was initiated in response to requests from stakeholders who increasingly need to share data with other road agencies but are frustrated by the lack of common data definitions and formats.

The Data Standard will cater for different levels of road asset complexity and planning to ensure it can be used by all road managers (from small local councils to large state and federal agencies) and to interface with existing data collection, finance, risk, and information systems.

The use of consistent road asset data is expected to:

• create opportunities for road managers to share and compare information
• improve strategic decision making and planning
• make design, construction, maintenance and operation of road networks more productive.

Organisations who collect or use road data for their asset and service performance assessment, performance benchmarking, road research, policy development, expenditure comparisons and funding approvals are encouraged to provide feedback on the standard. 

The Road Data Harmonisation project page has more information.

Submit feedback to Kelly Slattery by 5:00pm, Monday 9 January 2017.

A step closer to national automated vehicle trials

The National Transport Commission (NTC) today released a discussion paper, National guidelines for automated vehicle trials, calling for input into the key elements needed to support automated vehicle trials.

Acting Chief Executive of the NTC Geoff Allan said on-road trials are an important step in ensuring that any automated system operates safely and efficiently in Australia.

“Developing a single and nationally-agreed set of guidelines would help promote Australia as a test bed for automated vehicles by providing consistent conditions for trials, while at the same time encouraging innovation,” Mr Allan said.

“The guidelines will also help support cross-border trials.

“By harmonising trial conditions and expectations across jurisdictions, governments can work with industry to further explore the potential economic, environmental and safety benefits of this technology.”

Ministers endorsed the development of trial guidelines for automated vehicles earlier this month, as part of the NTC report, Regulatory reforms for automated road vehicles policy paper.

Input into the guidelines can be provided until 4pm Monday 16 January 2017 via the NTC website.

In partnership with Austroads, the NTC will present recommendations on guidelines to transport ministers at the Transport and Infrastructure Council meeting scheduled for May 2017.

The Austroads website has a new page summarising the current Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) trials involving Austroads member road transport authorities.

Establishing a national weigh-in-motion network

Austroads has published a methodology to establish an Australian (and potentially a New Zealand) weigh‑in‑motion (WIM) network.

WIM devices determine the gross vehicle mass of a vehicle as it is moving. WIM systems fall into two broad groups: low speed, typically used at weighbridges; or high speed, where vehicles are weighed in the traffic stream.

Current practice in Australia and New Zealand is to locate WIM devices on major freight, interstate and interregional routes and on roads providing access to major ports and cities. However, there are a disparate number of WIM devices throughout jurisdictions resulting in varied data capture and analysis.

Strategically placed WIM sites and coordinated data collection and analysis on a national basis could meet the needs of all stakeholders, while optimising the use of limited resources. 

The published methodology will ensure a consistent approach across WIM networks and enable accurate data sharing and analysis to plan for future freight movements.

The report presents:

• the nature and scope of guidelines for the strategic selection of new WIM stations
• information on available WIM systems sourced from WIM manufacturers and providers
• a complete list of data fields relevant to WIM stations, divided into higher importance and lower importance categories
• three options for common data processing of WIM data across Australia (a central repository of WIM data maintained by a third party was the preferred option)
• the importance of integration of intelligent transport systems with WIM systems and the added value that this can provide.

Improving the maintenance of ITS assets

Austroads has published a reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) strategy and framework to better manage intelligent transport system (ITS) assets.

ITS assets play a key role optimising efficiency and minimising crash risk in modern road network operations. 

They include traffic signals, pedestrian operated systems, variable message signs, electronic school zone signs, variable speed limits systems, over‑height vehicle warning systems, ramp meters, lane use management systems, automatic incident detection systems, black ice warning, automatic truck rollover warning systems, hazard warning systems (e.g. high wind), traveller information systems, vehicle data stations and bus priority systems. 

When ITS devices fail, the device can either be unavailable or operating in a degraded state for a long time. Unscheduled maintenance is costly and faults can potentially occur during critical times when the ITS asset is required to be functioning as designed/intended causing avoidable congestion cost and an increase in the risk of an incident.

RCM is the application of engineering principles to manage the consequences of failure under a constrained maintenance budget. The process has improved the reliability and cost-effectiveness of maintenance activities in defence, airline and mining industries.

RCM has the potential to improve asset performance by emphasising a proactive and predictive approach to asset management. RCM not only improves value-for-money due to improving performance but it also helps in getting more done with limited resources by assigning criticality to faults with a risk management process.

RCM also helps to understand how an asset fails and guides the management of the useful life of the asset, including re-deign or re-specification of the asset.

The report covers the identification of key success factors, confirmation of the benefits and acceptability of RCM within jurisdictions including their contractors and suppliers, design of an RCM process template, and drafting of a road map for moving from the current practice to RCM.

While there are some gaps that limit the full and effective application of RCM, jurisdictions will likely implement RCM for ITS assets by 2018.

Australian transport facts

BITRE has published two information sheets with Australian transport facts.

A dozen facts about transport in Australia covers a wide range of subjects, including commuting, freight, rail, energy and safety. The following 12 facts are included:

1. How big is the transport network?
2. How far do we travel?
3. Is this increasing?
4. How do we travel?
5. Are we changing how we travel?
6. Why do we travel like this?
7. What about freight?
8. Is freight transport increasing?
9. Are we commuting longer?
10. How do we pay for transport?
11. Is transport becoming more energy efficient and causing less emissions? and
12. Is transport safety improving?

Five facts about commuting in Australia covers a wide range of subjects, including volume and length of commuting, traffic congestion and commuting patterns. The following five questions are discussed:

1. Is commuting a big part of urban transport demand?
2. Is it true that a lot of people are spending hours stuck in traffic?
3. What has an Italian physicist got to do with commuting?
4. Why do some people commute longer? and
5. Are our commuting patterns changing?

BITRE Road Safety Reports

Road Deaths Australia—Monthly Bulletins
Released mid month - Latest November 2016 
This bulletin contains current counts and summaries of road crash deaths and fatal road crashes in Australia. It is produced monthly and published on BITRE's website on or around the 14th of each month. Data are sourced from the road traffic or police authorities in each jurisdiction.

Fatal Heavy Vehicle Crashes—Quarterly Bulletins
Latest September quarter 2016 
A quarterly publication tracking counts of fatal crashes that involve heavy vehicles.

Austroads Bridge Conference 2017:
Last chance for early bird rates

Early bird closes 15 December  
More than 200 abstracts are currently being reviewed for the ABC2017 program which will feature themes of:

• Bridge Analysis, Design and Assessment
• Innovative Bridge Construction
• Bridge Technology
• Bridge Asset Management
• Bridge Management Strategies
• Bridge Engineering Heritage
• Sustainability and Life Cycle Cost
• Codes and Standards
• Material Technology
• Field Applications and Case Studies
• Lessons Learnt from Bridge Damages and Failures
• Load Assessment

• Feature Projects

ABC2017 will be held 3-6 April 2017 in Melbourne.

For more information visit the website www.abc2017.com.au

Upcoming Workshops + Conferences

There’s a ‘lot’ happening in parking these days | 24 Jan 2017, 2 -2:45 pm, Online (no charge but registration essential)

Traffic Management Association of Australia (TMAA) Conference | 6-7 April 2017, Gold Coast, Queensland

10th Austroads Bridge Conference: ABC2017 | 3-6 April 2017, Melbourne, Victoria

AITPM National Traffic and Transport Conference | 15-18 August 2017, Melbourne, Victoria

Concrete 2017 | 22-25 October 2017, Adelaide, South Australia

IRF World Road Meeting | 14-17 November 2017, Delhi, India