Austroads publishes Multimodal Incident Management report

Austroads has published a report into how transport agencies can manage unplanned incidents that disrupt the operations of more than one transport mode.

Multimodal Incident Management (MMIM) aims to maintain transport services and minimise disruptions in day-to-day journeys. It requires a coordinated response from multiple road and public transport operators to resolve incidents and restore transport networks to normal operation.

Amy Naulls, Austroads Transport Network Operations Program Manager, said that transport agencies are under increasing pressures to meet customer needs for seamless connections across transport modes.

“As transport users, we increasingly expect our journeys to be reliable, with few delays or disruptions,” she said.

“Austroads members, road and transport agencies across Australia and New Zealand are strongly focussed on meeting customer needs, and working to provide a resilient, integrated multimodal transport network.”

The new report reviews current local and international multimodal incident management practices and provides guidance to road agencies to improve their MMIM capabilities. It includes 10 guiding principles and a capability framework.

An integrated multimodal transport network will help agencies to meet growing transport demands and manage incidents across multiple transport modes. Effective MMIM means that both road incidents and public transport disruptions are managed holistically.

To minimise disruptions to the community, agencies need to develop their MMIM capability – which extends across organisation and culture, business practices, information systems and technology.

This is a challenge for jurisdictional transport agencies as they are required to extend beyond traditional single-mode incident management. Increasingly, Austroads members are expected to provide incident management services across multiple modes to support continuity and improve customer satisfaction.

The report presents a flexible framework to help road agencies build their MMIM capability, according to each jurisdiction’s different needs, capabilities, and priorities.

“Moving towards a harmonised definition and approach to managing incidents will support Austroads’ member agencies and promote better interactions between road and public transport operators, ultimately improving the customer experience,” Naulls said.

To download the framework, visit: www.austroads.com.au

Austroads will be hosting a free webinar on 20 September 2022 to provide an overview of the MMIM research findings and agency guidance.

To register for the webinar, click here.

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