AustroadsNews | November 2016 

Welcome to the November edition of AustroadsNews. This newsletter provides a run-down on our latest publications, links to other relevant work in Australasia, and links to upcoming seminars and conferences.

If you have been forwarded this email you can subscribe here to receive future updates.

Austroads Board Meeting Communique

The Austroads Board met on 13 October 2016 in Melbourne. Neil Scales, Director-General for the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads chaired the meeting.

The meeting Communiqué includes an update on the progress of the Board's strategic projects, an overview of the research work program and the Board's strategic priorities for 2017-18. 

Hazard perception test video clip development world first

Adelaide based digital media producer Monkeystack has been engaged by Austroads to produce a library of car and motorcycle hazard perception test (HPT) videos and supporting material.

The clips, which will be produced using computer generated imagery (CGI), are in the initial phase of storyboard development in consultation with Austroads member agencies.

In a world first, the new high definition clips will incorporate specific scenarios for motorcycle riders and feature both car or motorcycle dashboard interfaces.

The project will modernise the HPTs currently in use and provide jurisdictions that do not have a HPT the opportunity to introduce the test to enhance their graduated licensing system.

Austroads Chief Executive, Nick Koukoulas said the project will improve novice driver and motorcycle rider safety.

“Young drivers and motorcyclists are over-represented in fatal and serious injury crashes and poor hazard perception skills have been shown to contribute to their crash involvement,” Nick said.

The computer based HPT measures a driver’s or rider’s ability to recognise potentially dangerous situations on the road and respond appropriately. The test is a key part of the licensing process in NSW, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland and has been shown to reduce the likelihood of crashes.

“I am particularly pleased that an Australian company was the successful tenderer for this project,” Nick said.

Established in 2004, Monkeystack has a reputation for high quality interactive and linear CGI productions. The team has won numerous international awards for simulated interactive content.

Director, Justin Wight, said the project’s goals align strongly with Monkeystack’s values.

“We aim to bring productions to life which bring benefit to others, in this instance contributing to greater road safety.”

“We’re proud to have been selected as the provider for the revised hazard perception test clips. Our team of Australian artists and technicians are dedicated to producing an exceptional result,” Justin said.

The project is expected to be completed by mid-2017.

Bridge assessment guidelines for high productivity vehicle access

Austroads has published a proposed process for assessing road bridge capacity for High Productivity Freight Vehicle (HPFV) access to the road network.

A HPFV is a truck-and-trailer combination that provides the ability to shift more freight more efficiently, and satisfies the Performance Based Standards (PBS) safety and infrastructure standards. HPFVs are granted access to the road network under the heavy vehicle access and approval process, administered by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR).

Assessing whether an HPFV can safely travel over an existing bridge is a key part of this process, often requiring road authorities to undertake detailed bridge investigations before the NHVR grants formal approval for an HPFV to access the road network.

This report considers a range of bridge assessment methods currently in use or in development across jurisdictions, evaluates these methods and provides recommendations and guidelines for consistent, transparent, and timely bridge assessment. It does not provide detail on the engineering / technical aspects of bridge assessment.

First edition of Data Standard for Road Maintenance and Investment released

Austroads has published the first version of the Data Standard for Road Maintenance and Investment.

The Standard has been developed in response to a need to harmonise data sets that support common road management and investment activities.

The Standard establishes a common understanding of the meaning of data collected by road agencies, to ensure it is correctly used and interpreted. It specifically relates to data that is typically used for road management and investment purposes.

This version of the Data Standard has been prepared following extensive consultation with Commonwealth, State and local government road managers. But there is still work to be done to ready the content for implementation.

Work has started on a first revision with an expectation that the second version of the Data Standard will be available in 2017.  Australian and New Zealand stakeholders will be consulted on the revised version and a staged implementation plan. 

This first version of the Standard is provided for information as a technical report.

Users will be able to access the completed data standard as a PDF document and via online tools that support its application and use. Implementation will be supported with training for practitioners and industry.

The Standard will benefit any road manager who uses data for road research, policy development, expenditure comparisons, funding approvals, national reporting, shared services, and inter-organisation communications. It will also support national transport reforms and has the potential to drive innovation.

To find out more about this project and receive project updates and consultation invitations, register with the project website  apps.opus.co.nz/austroads/. 

The Data Standard was developed by Opus International Consultants with the assistance of GISSA International and representative industry stakeholders, on behalf of Austroads. 

The basis for the inventory ‘as constructed’ data standards has been adopted from R-Spec V3C, which has evolved from initial work undertaken in Australia and more recently in New Zealand by the Transport Analytics Governance Group. The basis for the classification data standards has been adopted from the ‘One Network Road Classification’ system developed by The Road Efficiency Group in New Zealand.

Better understanding the safety of older road users

With the combined effects of an ageing population and increasing travel demand and activity levels, it is important to understand the key issues relating to the safety of older road users.

Austroads has published a report identifying trends in crashes involving road users aged over 75.

The project incorporated:

• a literature review
• analysis of 10 years of crash data from every jurisdiction in Australia and New Zealand
• analysis of three years of detailed hospital injury data for older road users in South Australia
• analysis of the contributing factors in older road user crashes examined using the Centre for Automotive Safety Research in-depth investigation method
• consultations with representatives of all jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand
• a summary of relevant sections of road safety strategies in a sample of international jurisdictions.

The report provides policy recommendations and describes crash countermeasures relevant to older road users.

The research found that the chief risk for older adults in the transport system is not crash occurrence, but high injury severity in the event of a crash, due to greater fragility and frailty. There is much to gain for older adults if vulnerability to injury can be addressed.

There is also a need for older adults to have available the best possible occupant protection in the event of a crash. For this reason, it is imperative that programs are implemented to increase the ownership of newer, safer cars among older adults.

The road user group with the highest risk of injury in a crash is that of pedestrians aged 75 or more and there is a need to protect older pedestrians. Much of this effort can be directed at pedestrian infrastructure and suitably low speed limits in areas with a high density of pedestrian traffic, especially in areas frequented by older pedestrians.

The increasing presence in the vehicle fleet of pedestrian detection technology that provides warnings to the driver or intervenes to prevent collisions with pedestrians are further means of protecting older pedestrians

The use of mobility scooters by older adults is an emerging issue and a number of jurisdictions have made considerable policy developments in this area.

Analysis of the characteristics of older driver crashes tends to identify collisions at intersections as a common crash type. Interestingly, analysis of crash rates per licensed driver suggests that older drivers do not actually have a higher crash rate at intersections than younger drivers but, nonetheless, one of the most effective avenues to a reduction of older driver crashes will be improving safety at intersections generally. Two methods of achieving this are the simplification of junctions, and reduction of speeds at junctions.

Reduced complexity can be achieved by full control of turns (i.e. elimination of right turns requiring gap acceptance decisions), elimination of roads intersecting at acute angles, and the use of roundabouts. Reduced speeds can be achieved by reductions in speed limits and the use of various intersection-specific traffic calming treatments.

To maximise the benefits of policies for older road users, the report recommends that different groups within government collaborate on developing a more holistic approach to ageing and transport.

Report link: Older Road Users: Emerging Trends

Austroads Webinar - Older Road Users: Emerging Trends

Thursday, 24 November 2016 | Online, 2-3pm AEDST

This webinar will provide attendees with an overview of the emerging trends in crash involvement among older road users, aged 75 years and over.

Attendees will gain an understanding of the:

• trends in older road user crash locations and crash types as well as injury outcomes, and whether there are any significant gaps in current road safety strategies or whether these trends are largely driven by demographic shifts
• development of countermeasures that reduce both the incidence of crashes and the severity of injury outcomes being experienced by older road users. 

Presented by Dr Matthew Baldock, Deputy Director of the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide. Matthew has worked in the road safety field for 20 years and was awarded a PhD for his thesis on the self-regulation of the driving behaviour of older drivers. He has won a number of awards in his career, including the Peter Vulcan Award for the best paper at the 2008 Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference.

No charge, but registration is essential.

Register now

Geometric design webinars recordings now available 

In October Austroads delivered a two-part webinar providing an overview of the updated Guide to Road Design Part 3: Geometric Design. The first session covers design objectives, speeds and cross sections. The second session covers horizontal and vertical alignment, and superelevation. The recordings are now available by clicking on the links below:

• Session 1
• Session 2

The presentation slides can be downloaded from the Austroads publications website. The webinars are presented by Peter Aumann, Principal Research Engineer, ARRB Group. Peter specialises in road design with a cross over in traffic management and road safety. He played a pivotal role in the 2016 update of the Guide.

New Geopolymer Concrete Guidance

Austroads has published a new guideline to help familiarise road engineers with geopolymer binders and concretes, highlighting their similarities and differences with concrete made with Portland cement.

Geopolymer describes a wide range of synthetic aluminosilicate materials that have the potential to replace Portland cement in the production of structural and non-structural concretes.

Unlike the highly energy-intensive processes employed in the manufacture of Portland cement clinker, geopolymer binders are made without firing. They are synthesised from the reaction of waste and industrial by‑products, such as fly ash, pulverised blast furnace slags, siliceous rock powder and metakaolinite, with strong alkali materials such as sodium hydroxide and sodium or potassium silicate. 

Their use of waste materials and the fact that they do not require firing, makes geopolymers more environmentally friendly than Portland cement-based materials and products. 

Some geopolymer concretes have been shown to have potentially advantageous engineering properties in comparison with conventional concretes made with Portland cement. However, geopolymer concretes are still an emerging technology and extensive investigations are required before they can be used on a large commercial scale for structural applications.

Geopolymer concretes are marketed as proprietary products. Producers encourage their use in various field applications but will not reveal the formulation of the concrete, which they consider to be commercially sensitive.

To overcome the lack of information about these products Austroads commissioned a four-year research project to investigate and develop the use of geopolymer concrete in the manufacture of bridge and road related structural and non-structural components.

The project included a major literature review and three years of experimental work. A summary of conclusions drawn from the project are included in these guidelines and will be detailed in a report to be published later this year.

The guidelines contain an introduction to geopolymer concrete, its constituents and manufacture; an examination of how geopolymer binder differs from Portland cement; and the status of geopolymer concrete as a construction material.

Improved modelling of unsealed road maintenance and deterioration

Austroads has published the results of a study designed to quantify the immediate and longer-term maintenance impact of grader blading and surface re-sheeting on unsealed roads.

The project assembled and analysed roughness data collected by Cassowary Coast Regional Council in Queensland, Blayney Shire Council in New South Wales and Moorabool Shire Council in central Victoria to expand the current works effects (WE) models to cover a wider range of traffic and climatic conditions and to validate the existing unsealed road roughness deterioration (RD) model.

WE models were developed for light blading, medium blading and granular re-sheeting maintenance works and a RD model was developed for roughness progression between maintenance activities.

The WE models are typically a function of the roughness before maintenance, the timing of the roughness measurements before and after maintenance, and annual precipitation. Traffic was not found to be a statistically significant variable.

The WE models for the medium blading and re-sheeting predicted similar impacts on the roughness before maintenance, despite the differences in maintenance effort. 

The RD roughness deterioration model is a major function of annual precipitation, time and the roughness before maintenance. Traffic was also not found to be a statistically significant variable in the RD model which may be a characteristic of the three road agencies in the study.

The suggested modifications to the RD and WE models should assist local government asset managers in their management of unsealed roads. It is expected that the models could be adapted to the varying local conditions of unsealed roads in other locations. 

Leading a paradigm shift in road safety

A report by the OECD's International Transport Forum released in October reviews the experience of Safe System countries and offers guidance for leaders who seek to drastically reduce road deaths in their communities.

This report describes a paradigm shift in road safety policy, being led by a handful of countries, according to the principles of a Safe System. A Safe System is based on the premise that road crashes are both predictable and preventable, and that it is possible to move towards zero road deaths and serious injuries. This, however, requires a fundamental rethink of the governance and implementation of road safety policy.

Austroads provided financial support for Iain Cameron and Colin Brodie who were invited to participate in the report's working group in recognition of the progress Australia and New Zealand have made implementing the Safe System approach. 

Iain Cameron, chaired the Working Group of more than 30 road safety experts from 24 countries and organisations. 

The report's core recommendations include:

• Be ambitious: Think safe roads, not just safer roads. The conventional approach to road safety seeks incremental improvements to current practice. A Safe System works backwards from the vision of eliminating road fatalities and serious injuries, thus creating new perspectives as to effective instruments
• Be resolute: Foster a sense of urgency and lead the way. In the countries and cities that have adopted a Safe System, innovation occurred where political leaders strongly felt that the current approach no longer delivered. Strong and visionary leaders, who galvanise policy making as well as public opinion , open the way for others to follow and also ensure that a sense of urgency permeates the responsible government agencies.
• Be inclusive: Establish shared responsibility for road safety. Today, avoiding harmful crashes is the responsibility of the road user. A Safe System requires everyone with a role in the traffic environment to recognise this role and assume responsibility for making traffic safe. Shared responsibility is the basis for integrated policies and complementary actions that leverage all parts of a Safe System for greater overall safety.
• Be concrete: Underpin aspirational goals with concrete operational targets. Establish milestones that show the vision is long-term but realistic. The Swedish government was able to report in 2008 that no child had been killed in a bicycle crash that year. A number of cities in Europe, Japan and the US recorded no road fatality in the course of a year, and 16 towns in Europe of more than 50 000 inhabitants had no traffic fatalities in five years.

Features of fully driverless, fully electric shuttle bus to be trialled in Perth intellibus.rac.com.au

Reform roadmap for automated vehicle regulations

Ministers at November’s Transport and Infrastructure Council meeting agreed to a series of reform initiatives to facilitate increased testing and trialling of more automated vehicles, ensure increased confidence in safe performance of more automated vehicles under Australian conditions, provide clarity over insurance coverage in the event of a crash, and develop a more responsive performance-based approach to the regulation of more automated vehicles.

These initiatives are outlined in a policy paper Regulatory reforms for automated road vehicles released by the National Transport Commission (NTC).

Initiatives to commence over coming months include:

• developing national guidelines to support automated vehicle trials
• clarifying who is in control of a vehicle with different levels of driving automation
• developing a comprehensive performance-based safety assurance regime for increasingly automated vehicles
• removing regulatory barriers in Australian Road Rules and other transport laws that assume a human driver.

Austroads is focused on the operational aspects of supporting automated vehicles including:

• the design, maintenance and operation of road networks
•  evaluating the safety benefits of automated and connected vehicles
• the registration of vehicles, and the training and licensing of drivers.

The Austroads projects will address key operational issues that will require close consideration by governments before increasingly automated vehicles can operate safely in Australia. Findings from the Austroads program of work will be inputs to the recommended actions outlined in the NTC paper.

International Award for NZTA Road Safety Campaign 

A road safety advertising campaign developed for the New Zealand Transport Agency has been awarded a Gold award and the Tim Broadbent Prize for Best International campaign at the IPA Effectiveness Awards, the world’s most rigorous and prestigious industry Awards scheme, in London. 

The Awards showcase and reward campaigns that demonstrate their marketing payback, and provide the richest communications database in the world (www.ipa.co.uk/ease).

The campaign acknowledged that most speeding drivers believe they're skilled enough to exceed the limit; everyone else is the problem. The campaign's anti-speeding film 'Mistakes' relied on this assumption for its impact, gaining international fame. More importantly, it created a conversation about speed amongst people who had stopped listening. In the first year after the campaign launched, average speeds on New Zealand roads fell by an average of 0.4km per hour, projected to reduce NZD 46m from the cost of accidents. Using a conservative estimate that 10 per cent of this saving was attributable to communications, the campaign is estimated to have returned NZD 1.6 for every NZD 1 invested.

The advertisement has been viewed more than 12 million times on You Tube; watch it by clicking on the link below.

Safety and efficiency at intersections

The New Zealand Transport Agency has published a report considering the evidence on safety and efficiency at intersections, using New Zealand data and international research. It outlines a systematic approach for evaluating the safety and efficiency benefits at intersections, as part of the project development process.

A review of New Zealand and international practices, analysis tools, guides and processes were considered. The authors found very little in the literature to define what is considered to be an acceptable trade-off between safety and efficiency at intersections, largely due to the existing separation of the two fields in all jurisdictions researched. A recommended solution has been presented in the form of a ‘proof of concept’ evaluation framework, which takes into account a range of factors and case studies. It is recommended that the transport sector considers utilising this framework as a decision support tool in ensuring the correct decisions, with respect to delivering against safety and efficiency outcomes, are made at the appropriate stage of the project development.

Have your say on the Load Restraint Guide

The National Transport Commission and National Heavy Vehicle Regulator are reviewing the Load Restraint Guide and are seeking feedback on how the current guide can be improved.

The Load Restraint Guide provides transport drivers, operators, and other participants in the transport chain of responsibility with the basic safety principles which should be followed for the safe carriage of loads on road vehicles.

This project aims to ensure the guide:

• is easy to access and understand
• meets the needs of the people who use it
• is accurate, up to date and reflects the practices that have developed since the last edition of the Guide was published in 2004.

You can have your say about the format and structure of the new guide by completing  a short survey.

BITRE Road Safety Reports

Road Deaths Australia—Monthly Bulletins
Released mid month - Latest October 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.

Austroads Bridge Conference 2017:
Register now 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

38th Australasian Transport Research Forum | 16-18 November 2016, Melbourne, Victoria

27th ARRB Conference | 16-18 November 2016, Melbourne, Victoria

NEW Austroads Webinar - Older Road Users: Emerging Trends | 24 November 2016, online

ARRB Webinar - The updated Austroads Guide to Traffic Management Part 10: Traffic Control and Communication Devices | 1 Dec 2016, online

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

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