David McTiernan, National Leader for Transport Safety at Australian Road Research Board, sits down with Roads & Infrastructure to talk about ARRB’s role in integrating safety with road construction.
The Australian national government is spending record funding on improving road safety. The 2021 federal budget raised the national government’s contribution to the Road Safety Program to $3 billion, bringing the fund to represent, for the first time, 10 per cent of what road crashes cost to the country each year.
A revision of the National Road Safety Strategy is currently underway based on comments received from key industry players. The strategy aims to achieve Vision Zero (zero deaths and serious injuries) by 2050, starting with halving road fatalities and reducing serious injuries by 30 per cent to 2030.
The state governments on their parts have also increased their commitments to road safety projects, with the Victorian Government Department of Transport establishing this year a dedicated team to lead the delivery of the Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030.
With such emphasis on road safety improvement, ARRB National Leader for Transport Safety, David McTiernan says there’s a critical role to be played by local governments in achieving the ambitious Vision Zero goal.
“Of the approximately 880,000 kilometres of public roads in Australia, local governments, that is the 537 councils across the country, have responsibility for over 660,000 kilometres of the road length. That is nearly 75 per cent of the total road network falling under the local governments’ jurisdiction,” he observes.
Having worked in local government for 16 years prior to joining ARRB, McTiernan knows first-hand about the challenges faced by local governments. He says despite such grave responsibility, local councils often lack the funding and access to the specialised knowledge to take a holistic approach to road safety.
That’s where ARRB’s expertise comes into play. As an advisor to all levels of government and to other road managers, ARRB plays a key role in helping asset managers understand road safety risks present on their networks, then assisting them to plan and prioritise road infrastructure improvements that address their local road safety issues.
“Despite such a diverse coverage of road infrastructure, from city roads to regional centres and remote communities, councils don’t always have the funding or access to the expertise to address their local road safety issues. So instead, they tend to focus on maintaining the roads under their jurisdiction to the best condition that they can afford. But, as we know, maintaining a road to the required standard does not necessarily guarantee maximum road safety. Road safety has its own specialty area, which is road safety engineering,” he explains.
“Asset managers certainly have safety in their minds, but it’s the road safety engineer who can look at the projects from a ‘safe system perspective’ and make sure that every aspect of the road transport system is considered to produce the safest outcome for all road users” he adds.
ARRB’S ROLE
As an advisor in the road and infrastructure sector, ARRB is able to help all road agencies and managers to understand the level of road safety risk present on their networks. Having this knowledge will then assist them to plan and prioritise road infrastructure improvements that address their local road safety issues.
McTiernan recalls an example where the ARRB Transport Safety team, a nearly 20-strong group of safety engineers and experts based at ARRB centres nationally, helped a client in a regional local government area adopt an innovative approach to road safety and in the process, gain better risk assessment ratings.
“The local road was anticipated to have large increases in daily movement of heavy vehicles. So the client and the local council consulted ARRB to seek the best way to manage the increased traffic while keeping the local rural community safe. After reviewing the road safety risks of the existing and proposed road formations, ARRB proposed an alternate road formation which kept the narrow traffic lanes but combined it with a one-metre-wide centreline, wider sealed shoulders and reduction in speed limits.”
The result, as McTiernan explains, was a “more forgiving road” that increased the separation between traffic and the heavy vehicles and provided space where it would be needed for drivers to regain control of their drifting or errant vehicle.
“It is through such holistic analysis of the network that ARRB helps road managers better understand the potentials with their road, and this also places the local governments in a better position to access funding from the record national and state government funds to reduce road safety risks and their liability.”
Another area where ARRB actively plays a role is through development of best practices and guidelines for a safe road industry. In this role, McTiernan says, ARRB experts take lessons from around the world and adapts them to the Australian road conditions.
“Not everything can just be transplanted from another country to Australia. We saw this happen in Dubai where they picked up American and UK standards, but these did not necessarily result in safe practice there. So, at ARRB we look at what happens across Australia and around the world, and we then write guidelines and best practice materials that local industry practitioners can take and implement.
In 2021, ARRB will produce a new Best Practice Guide to help local government build and manage safer road infrastructure. ARRB’s next Local Government series will be focusing on Safer Road Infrastructure and will be developed specifically to assist local government practitioners to integrate the latest available best practice road safety principles and tools when managing their road assets so they meet community obligations while at the same time improve travel mobility.
IMPROVING CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Where it directly involves the construction industry, ARRB is also busy doing research and proposing solutions that help improve the safety of construction workers on road projects, as well as to ensure infrastructure upgrades are not endangering other road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.
One such initiative that ARRB has been involved with as part of the National Road Safety Partnership Program is CLOCS-A or Construction Logistics and Community Safety – Australia.
“CLOCS-A has been inspired by the success of the CLOCS Program originally developed in the UK to reduce road trauma and ensure safe construction vehicle journey when the City of London was undergoing heavy upgrades,” McTiernan explains.
“We now have a similar situation in Australia with all the infrastructure upgrades in major cities, which increase the risk of pedestrians and cyclists getting knocked over by construction traffic. The primary goal of CLOCS-A is that a similar reduction in lives lost and serious injuries can be achieved locally on our roads in Australia.”
EYE ON THE FUTURE
McTiernan is optimistic about the national and state governments adopting a broader view of road safety in recent years, particularly with regards to lowering the cost of road trauma.
“Over the past two years, the federal government has started looking at the cost of road trauma on the broader economy – which in Australia is about $30 billion per year – and how that requires a greater investment in road safety.
“COVID-19 has been a catalyser for that and this year we have seen the record $3 billion commitment from the national government on road safety. It will be interesting to see if the funding continues in the coming years, but at the moment, the trends in all tiers
of government is to focus on spending the money to prevent road trauma rather than having to spend that on recovery. This has triggered positive initiatives in adopting road safety technologies such as tactile line marking and designing wider shoulders for roads, as well as investing on better barriers and guard rails.”
On its part, McTiernan says ARRB will continue to train and guide practitioners, including those in the local governments, to adopt the latest guidelines on road safety.
“It’s what we’ve been doing for the past 60 years,” he says. “We often engage with local government employees to help them understand causes of crashes in their area and then supporting them to amend any shortfalls. With the record funding from the national and state governments for developing safer road infrastructure, armed with analysis of risk on their networks, road managers will be better placed to access this funding to implement the much-needed road improvements to reduce road safety risk and their liability.”
With more push from state governments to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles, ARRB is also keeping an eye on the future through its Future Transport Systems Group.
“As technologies like autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles evolve, there’s so much to learn about how these vehicles will contribute to the road safety mix over the next ten years and what infrastructure will be needed to support them. That will bring a new set of challenges for local government and ARRB will be working with them side-by- side to figure those out.”
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