This edition of Austroads News provides a run-down on our latest reports and resources. There's also information about road related Australian Standards currently open for comment, a new report about attitudes to road safety from the Commonwealth Government and two new reports from our World Road Association representatives.

In April Austroads released the second edition of Cycling Aspects of Austroads Guides.

The publication contains information that relates to the planning, design and traffic management of cycling facilities and is sourced from Austroads Guides, primarily the Guide to Road Design, the Guide to Traffic Management and the Guide to Road Safety.

It is intended as a guide for engineers, planners and designers involved in the planning, design, construction and management of cycling facilities. Throughout the document practitioners are referred to relevant Austroads Guides for additional information.

The full publication and a quick reference guide are available. In both documents, the Guide icons are linked to the relevant guide on the Austroads publications website.

The Australian Bicycle Council has launched a new web resource of cycling related research, policies, plans and guidelines. The site replaces the Cycling Resource Centre and provides a one-stop-shop for active transport practitioners. 

The Australian National Risk Assessment Model (ANRAM) helps road agencies identify fatal and serious injury (severe) crash risk across all parts of the road network. ANRAM helps road agencies manage this risk through development of treatment programs aimed at reducing fatal and serious injury crashes. In April Austroads published a report that documents the development of ANRAM.

ANRAM provides a mechanism for the identification, measurement and reporting of fatal and serious injury crash risk based on road infrastructure, speed and traffic flow, and on fatal and serious crash history. It then enables scoping and prioritising of proactive investment options to address the highest risk road sections on the Australian road network. Guidance is also provided for implementation of ANRAM by jurisdictions at strategic and practical levels.

The ANRAM system provides road agencies in Australia with a tool to implement a nationally consistent risk-based road assessment program to support the objectives of both SCOTI and the National Road Safety Strategy. It allows jurisdictions to prioritise and develop targeted safety upgrade works for high-risk road sections, which reflect their local conditions and resources.

As at April 2014 the ANRAM toolkit is available for trail by Australian state, territory and local road agencies via ARRB.

This report defines how emerging C-ITS will integrate with existing ITS currently being operated by Austroads member road agencies.

The report is limited to investigating what is required to achieve interoperability between 5.9 ITS (a term used to describe a subset of C-ITS which utilises 5.9 GHz communications) and the selected existing ITS infrastructure of electronic speed limit signs, traveller data collection, traffic signals and traveller information systems.

Interoperability was investigated for the four interoperability levels of technical, syntactical, semantic and organisational. From these investigations it was found that there are changes and elements required to make 5.9 ITS interoperable with the existing ITS infrastructure investigated with many common themes identified.

Some of the key common themes include:

• To achieve technical interoperability will require elements such as a 5.9 roadside ITS station and software within the unit to form a 5.9 ITS message
• To achieve syntactical interoperability will require converting the ITS infrastructure content into the syntax required for 5.9 ITS messages
• To achieve semantic interoperability will require forming a 5.9 ITS message that complies with the standardised content and meaning, making allowance for international terminology
• To achieve organisational interoperability requires road agencies to integrate 5.9 ITS with existing ITS infrastructure across all interoperability levels.

While this report discusses the integration between ITS infrastructure and 5.9 ITS, it is acknowledged that some C-ITS functionality could be achieved through integrating C-ITS with existing ITS infrastructure using cellular communications. Additional issues associated with 5.9 ITS integration with ITS infrastructure include privacy, security, certification, liability, management of ‘big data’, private–public partnerships, field operation tests/trials and location and extent of 5.9 roadside ITS station deployment.

The number of light commercial vehicles in Australia has increased at a faster rate than both population and state economic growth. In April Austroads published a report that examines the contribution of light commercial vehicles and light rigid trucks to the urban supply chain. It also considers their impact on traffic capacity, network congestion, the environment and road safety.

This project defined light freight vehicles (LFVs) as being a LCV or LRT which is used primarily for the carriage of freight. That is, LFVs transport goods from one location to another without adding further value. It collected traffic flow data from a number of sites during peak and off- peak periods on weekdays in two capital and two regional cities in New South Wales and Queensland.

Analysis found LFVs comprise 9.1% of more than 2,100 observed LCVs, and 77.3% of the 251 observed LRTs. These findings are substantially supported by the Melbourne Commercial Vehicle Video Study of 2012. LFVs comprise only 4.1% of all the traffic streams observed in four cities.

A number of draft road related Australian Standards are currently open for public comment including:

• Nine standards relating to electric vehicles 
• AS 1012.1 Methods of testing concrete - Sampling of fresh concrete
• AS 2758.1 Concrete aggregate
• AS 1798 Lighting poles and bracket arms- Preferred dimensions
• AS/NZS 1158.5  Lighting for roads and public spaces - Tunnels and underpasses Part 5: Tunnels and underpasses
• AS 2890.3 Parking facilities – Part 3: Bicycle parking facilities

Download and comment on the drafts on the Australian Standards website.

In April the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development released a report that documents the findings from the 2013 Survey of Community Attitudes to Road Safety.

The twenty-third in a series of national surveys on community attitudes to road safety was conducted in October and November 2013. A total of 1,500 interviews were conducted with persons aged 15 years and over.

Issues examined include: perceived causes of road crashes, exposure and attitudes to random breath testing, attitudes to speed, perceptions of police enforcement, mobile phone use while driving, reported usage of seatbelts, involvement in road crashes, and experience of fatigue while driving.

The World Road Association is an international road organisation with 118 member governments and some 2,500 road experts. Both Australia and New Zealand are full country members.

The work of the Association is undertaken by 17 committees which bring together technical experts from around the world.

Austroads currently has full or corresponding representatives on 15 of the 17 committees. The representatives provide regular progress reports on the work being conducted by their technical committee.

The technical committee representatives are either members of or have a close working relationship with an Austroads task force or working group. Recent reports from representatives include:

Earthworks and Unpaved Roads
by Andrew Bosco, DPTI SA

Freight Transport
by Rick Barber, New Zealand Transport Agency

NEW UN Association of Australia - Sustainable Transport in Victoria: Developing, financing and implementing a state plan
8 May 2014, Melbourne 

NeTC Industry Forum - Tolling Into the Future 2014
27-29 May 2014, Sydney Australia

Velo City Global Cycling Conference
27-29 May 2014, Adelaide, Australia

IPWEA Sustainability in Public Works
27-29 July 2014, Tweed Heads/Coolangatta, Australia

AITPM National Traffic and Transport Conference
12-15 August 2014, Adelaide Australia

26th ARRB Conference [Early bird registration open]
19-22 October 2014, Sydney Australia

Austroads Bridge Conference [Early bird registration open]
22-24 October 2014, Sydney, Australia

NEW XXVth World Road Congress Call for papers
2-6 November 2015, Seoul, Korea