With Australia’s national road death toll rising, the National Transport Research Organisation is hoping to inspire a change through the development of its ‘Road Safety Revolution’ resource. David McTiernan, National Leader – Transport Safety explains.
Over the past four years, Australia has had a concerning rise when it comes to road safety statistics.
For the first time since the 1960s, the number of road fatalities has seen a continued and steady increase, with 2024 figures showing a significant jump to more than 1300 people killed on Australian roads, despite substantial investment from government and road authorities.
With the 2030 National Road Safety targets now looming, the National Transport Research Organisation (NTRO) has identified that conventional thinking and approaches aren’t enough to reverse this trend.
It’s for these reasons that the NTRO has developed its ‘Road Safety Revolution’, an approach that aims to move beyond traditional and siloed approaches to road safety, instead seeking to engage in a more collaborative and community-driven approach.
As David McTiernan, National Leader, Transport Safety – NTRO explains, development of the Road Safety Revolution resource aims to challenge existing paradigms and engage a broader cross-section of society to address the issue.
“We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome,” he says. “That’s what this ‘revolution’ is all about, looking outside the box and reassessing how we can better tackle this issue.”
But why have these statistics increased?
McTiernan says there isn’t one particular facet to blame, rather it’s a combination of factors culminating in greater risks for road users. He says infrastructure, vehicle safety, road user behaviour, and broader societal changes are all contributing factors.
“It’s such a multi-faceted issue,” McTiernan says. “If you look at the Safe System approach and the basic five pillars, which are Safer Vehicles, Roads, People, Speed and Post-crash Care, all of those need to be working in concert.
“All of those need to be kicking goals if we’re really going to achieve what we’re trying to achieve, which is a vision of zero road deaths by 2050. If even one of those factors is falling short, it can make a massive difference in our delivering on this vision (or targets if you want to limit it to 2030.”
Everyone’s responsibility
As one of the world’s leading transport research and insight providers, the NTRO’s data-driven approach has previously inspired the development of safer, more sustainable and more resilient infrastructure assets, as well as communities.
It’s for this reason, that the four key principles of the Road Safety Revolution focus on inspiring change at a grassroots level, as well as designing and delivering more adequate transport infrastructure where applicable.
The first key focus of the Road Safety Revolution is challenging the mindset that road safety is someone else’s problem to fix. Instead, the NTRO wants to make it clear that all road users have a personal responsibility to drive safely, be considerate of others, and make choices that prioritise their safety and the safety of other road users.
McTiernan believes framing the challenge of road safety as a shared community issue will help to build a sense of collective responsibility. He adds that this focus has always been a priority but may have been underrated in terms of its potential impact.
“In some cases, we forgot to bring the community along with us on that journey,” he says. “We focused inwardly, which we needed to do technically, but we forgot that the community needs to be on board with the change required to reduce road trauma, that’s why there needs to be a renewed focus.
“It’s about the community understanding that road safety impacts every aspect of their life. It’s not someone else’s responsibility to make our roads safer. As a driver, I have my own responsibilities, to not speed, to not drink and drive or make other choices that have the potential of causing harm.
“Once we’ve got the community on board, they can start to lobby for more preventative action to occur.”
The second pillar of the Road Safety Revolution resource places a focus on ‘changing the system’. The NTRO wants to ensure road safety is considered from the start to the end of every journey. This applies to all road users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport passengers.
“The moment you step out the front door, you’re a road user,” McTiernan says. “We as road managers, road designers and government should also be thinking about that journey.”
In the past, funding and investment in road safety has targeted vehicle-centric infrastructure. One example is the Black Spot Program, which targets dangerous road locations where fatal and serious crashes are occurring, or are at a high risk of occurring.
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While acknowledging these projects and funding are important to saving lives, the NTRO believes approaches such as this neglect the needs of other vulnerable road users.
“We need to think more broadly. We’ve targeted and delivered on the low hanging fruit, but the road crash data indicates that we need to shift focus on other areas,” McTiernan says.
He adds that the third pillar of the Road Safety Revolution is about delivering infrastructure that matches road function and speed. He says this doesn’t just mean lowering speeds across the board, rather it’s about ensuring that the speed limit matches the function and design of the road.
“We can’t just say, ‘let’s lower speeds everywhere’. It’s about having the right speed for the right road,” McTiernan says.
This is particularly important on rural and regional roads, where travel demands and crash types can differ from metropolitan areas.
“The key is finding the right balance between mobility needs and safety, which is where the ‘Movement and Place’ framework has been effective,” McTiernan says. “Some roads are primarily for movement and efficiency of travel, while others are more focused on a place function, where people live and work.
“The speed limits and infrastructure need to match each of these different road functions. In regional Australia, the most frequent types of crashes are single vehicle run-off road or head-on collisions in high-speed environments. Most times that can be put down to a function of the quality of the road, as well as the speed limit. In some areas, the speed might be the simplest trigger that you can pull to improve safety. But that’s not always palatable with the community and elected officials.”
Embracing community action
The fourth and final pillar of the Road Safety Revolution framework, similar to the first, addresses the importance of change at a grassroots level and the important role the community can play.
It outlines the need for clear messaging to help the community to understand why road safety is important and why their influence is imperative.
“If we’re going to see change, leaders need to see that the community is calling for it,” McTiernan says. “If this was a workplace health and safety issue, there’s clear legislation that sets out clear lines of responsibilities of employers, management and staff. But with road safety, there isn’t clarity. We need to try and make it clear that it’s everyone’s responsibility.
“It’s about saving the lives of those in our communities.”
McTiernan says the Road Safety Revolution represents the first phase in what will be a long, but important journey.
“The first thing we need to do is understand different perspectives,” he says. “How do people in non-traditional road safety areas, our community and business leaders, perceive road safety? Then it’s about taking that information, using NTRO’s experience and expertise, to understand these views and looking at it from our perspective.
“We’re now in the exploratory phase. We want to ask the question to those without a road safety background to learn what they see as being both the problem and potential solutions .”
It’s worth noting that a rising road toll isn’t a trend that’s exclusive to Australia. Developed countries around the world are seeing either a slowing in the reduction of road trauma or gradual increases in road fatalities, even in nations traditionally viewed as road safety leaders, such as the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
With that in mind, McTiernan says the NTRO’s 2025 International Technical Conference in May (7-9) will play an important role in adopting concepts that are working in other countries.
The Technical Conference will be attended by international delegates, as well as industry leaders in Australia, to discuss important topics such as sustainable assets, smart mobility, material innovation, decarbonisation in transport and more.
“Australia still has a lot to learn from our international counterparts,” McTiernan says. “In saying that, other countries are also really keen to hear what we have to say, as we’ve had some great success in the past.
“It’s important to see what’s being done differently. We can’t just be isolated in that respect.”
This article was originally published in the March edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.
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