Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

Charting a Path to Eliminating Road Death and Serious Injury

This webinar presents the completed Austroads Charting a Path to Eliminating Road Death and Serious Injury project, including all three streams and newly released knowledge transfer resources. It introduces the Planning for Zero Framework (PfZF)—a practical, system-based approach to achieving Vision Zero by 2050—and demonstrates how it translates into actionable Zero Pathways tailored to jurisdictions.

Participants will explore key findings, practical road safety strategy development advice, and a comprehensive suite of artefacts now available through the Knowledge Hub, including briefings, fact sheets, infographics, engagement guidance, and messaging toolkits.

The session is designed for road safety leaders and practitioners, and general road and transport professionals, seeking clear, evidence-based guidance to move from road safety ambition to implementation—combining technical planning, change management, and stakeholder engagement to deliver sustained reductions in death and serious injury.

Updates to Austroads Guide to Temporary Traffic Management in Edition 1.2

The Austroads Guide to Temporary Traffic Management (AGTTM) provides nationally consistent guidance for the planning, design, and implementation of safe and efficient temporary traffic management across Australia and New Zealand.

Recent revisions to AGTTM Parts 1–7, 9 and 10 (Edition 1.2) focus on continuing to align the Guide with contemporary temporary traffic management best practice, improving clarity, and strengthening consistency of terminology. Approximately 30 per cent of content across these Parts has been updated, while deliberately retaining the existing structure of the Guide. These updates represent an incremental and continuous improvement approach, refining guidance where while maintaining consistency for ease of integration with existing TTM documentation.

This webinar provides a practical overview of the key changes, their intent, and what they mean for those involved in the planning, approval and delivery of temporary traffic management.

Use Cases For Fibre Optics Technology

This webinar presented the outcomes of Austroads Project NEG6439, which examined how fibre optic sensing technologies can be applied to support improved road agency services and functions.

While fibre optic networks are widely deployed across Australian and New Zealand transport agencies for communications, their use as a sensing capability remains relatively underutilised. This project explored how technologies such as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), distributed temperature sensing (DTS) and strain fibre sensing (SFS) can be leveraged across a broad range of operational use cases.

The webinar outlines approximately 20 prioritised use cases across four key domains: traffic monitoring, anomaly detection, security and asset management. These include applications such as travel speed and volume monitoring, linear heat detection in tunnels, perimeter security, and structural health monitoring of bridges and tunnels. The session also presented an assessment of technology maturity, highlighting that several use cases are already at established to advanced levels (TRL 5–9), while others remain emerging or nascent and suited to targeted trials.

Practical guidance was provided on how these technologies can be integrated into existing transport systems, including key considerations for deployment, operations, and data management, as well as insights into market trends and capability requirements.

This webinar recording will be of interest to transport agencies, infrastructure operators, and practitioners involved in intelligent transport systems, asset management and network operations.

This webinar was presented by Irene Horvat and Henry Wu with a live Q+A moderated by David Yee.

Investigating New Performance Testing of Unbound Granular Materials

Unbound granular materials play a crucial role in providing cost-effective road transport infrastructure across Australia and New Zealand. Compared to the thick asphalt and concrete pavements common in urban centres, thin bituminous surfaced unbound granular pavements offer a more economical solution for sealed road networks, albeit with lower load-bearing capacity and in some cases lower performance reliability.

The performance of unbound granular materials is primarily influenced by their shear strength, modulus, and resistance to material breakdown under construction and traffic loads. Improved performance tests are required to provide practical pavement design methods and performance-based specifications for their use in construction.

This webinar presents research to identify new performance tests recommended for future Austroads research. Performance characterisation methods were reviewed, including repeated load triaxial (RLT) testing and wheel tracker testing. In identifying potential new improved laboratory test methods, particularly in relation to rut-resistance, cognisance was taken of the shear stress reversals due to rolling wheel loads that occur in service.

Enabling Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging

This webinar highlights key themes from the Enabling Accessible EV Charging guidelines, which provide guidance on improving the usability of EV charging infrastructure for people with disability.

The session touches on selected aspects of the EV charging experience, including site layout, charging equipment, wayfinding, and payment, focusing on issues that commonly arise in real-world deployments. Drawing on research, consultation, and international best practice, the webinar will share insights into accessibility challenges and examples of good practice emerging in Australia and overseas. The webinar aims to support awareness and informed decision-making among planners, infrastructure providers, and policymakers as EV charging networks continue to expand.

Austroads Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4K: Selection and Design of Sprayed Seals

This webinar presents the outcomes from a series of workshops with industry and users aimed at identifying future research needs and required changes to the Austroads Guide to Pavement Technology Part 4K: Selection and Design of Sprayed Seals. The aim of this projects was to continue refining the Austroads sprayed seal design method and its related guidance to better suit evolving traffic loads, pavement structures, and material technologies.

The Austroads sprayed seal design method, widely used in Australia, provides guidance on materials, treatment selection, and methods for calculating binder application rates and aggregate spread rates. In New Zealand, the chipsealing design method is detailed in Chipsealing in New Zealand.

Ongoing changes in traffic loadings, pavement structures and materials have prompted updates to the Guide that have been immediately implemented into a newly published version. To ensure the design methods remain reliable and that sprayed seals can perform under increased traffic volumes, updates were based on input from seal designers, transport agencies, consultants, and contractors as part of the workshops held in Australia and New Zealand. These changes, and the future research plan generated as part of this project will be described in this webinar.

Design Principles for Adapting Roads and Infrastructure for Emerging Mobility Technologies

As automated, connected and electric vehicle technologies continue to develop, road agencies across Australia and New Zealand need to prepare infrastructure for new operating conditions. Technologies such as Automated Vehicles (AVs), Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs), Electric Vehicles (EVs), Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) place new demands on both physical and digital infrastructure. Many of these demands extend beyond the scope of current design standards.

This webinar presents the findings of Austroads Project CAV6428, which defines a set of high-level design principles to support infrastructure readiness for future mobility. The project reviewed international and local research, analysed existing Austroads and jurisdictional guidance, and engaged with Austroads member agencies to understand current challenges and priorities. The project outputs provide a structured foundation to support agencies through this transition, identifying key gaps and mapping how infrastructure capability can evolve over time.

The project identified 24 topic areas - 11 physical and 13 digital - where agencies require clearer direction to support emerging vehicle technologies. Across these topics, the report identifies 135 design principles covering areas such as managing transitions of control between automated and manual driving, ensuring readability of lane markings and signage, managing mixed traffic interactions, kerbside management for automated vehicles and EVs, ensuring reliable CAV communications, protecting data from cybersecurity threats, and supporting digital resilience.

The principles give agencies practical direction for planning and adapting infrastructure in an evolving technology environment. They support informed decision-making that reflects local context, operational needs and technology readiness. The principles are a flexible toolkit that agencies can apply selectively to suit different project types and stages of deployment, while supporting consistency across jurisdictions.

The project also developed an online mapping tool to help visualise and navigate the principles. This interactive matrices allow users to filter by topic area and explore how physical and digital considerations for vehicle technologies impact infrastructure.

In this session, presenters David Yee and Megan Sharkey explain the purpose and structure of the design principles, summarise the key physical and digital topic areas, outline how agencies can apply the principles in practice. The session will also demonstrate how the mapping tool can support practical application.

This webinar is relevant to professionals across road and transport agencies, including planners, designers, asset managers, ITS specialists and policy leads involved in preparing infrastructure for emerging mobility technologies.

Implementation of the National Driver Distraction Roadmap: Incorporating Human Factors in Transport Systems

Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) is the discipline that focuses on understanding and optimising interactions between humans and system components to enhance performance, safety, health and wellbeing. Human Factors Integration (HFI) is the process by which HFE knowledge, principles and methods are utilised throughout the system lifecycle to support the design of safe, usable and effective components.

In this presentation, we outline the new Austroads Guidelined for Human Factors Integration in Road Transport (HFI-RT). The HFI-RT guideline provides road transport system stakeholders with information to support the consideration and application of HFE knowledge, principles and methods during the design, implementation and operation of road transport system components (e.g. vehicles and in-vehicle technologies, traffic control devices, signage, roads and roadsides, advertising, training and education programs, policies and procedures). During the presentation, we will provide an overview of the HFI-RT guideline and demonstrate it via a case study focused on driver distraction.

Keeping People Safe When Walking Stream 2 – Economic Assessment of Safer Speeds

This webinar provided an overview of the Austroads’ report, Keeping People Safe When Walking – Stream 2: Economic Assessment of Safer Speeds, completed as part of the Keeping People Safe When Walking program. The assessment applies a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) approach, which estimates and compares the costs and benefits for society from 12 different hypothetical speed limit reductions in a variety of (mostly urban) contexts. Emerging economic techniques were applied to value, in dollar terms, the benefits of reduced speed limits for society from reduced road trauma and improved pedestrian mobility. This was weighed against productivity-related costs from increased travel time. The assessment builds a framework and evidence to support road managers looking to assess speed limit changes.

In this webinar, attendees heard about:

• how speed limit reductions can be assessed using a cost-benefit analysis framework
• why it appears there is a strong case for safer speed limits as a key pedestrian safety intervention
• the key drivers of this result and areas where further evidence would add value for future policy reform assessments.

This webinar was presented by Anna Wilson. The Q+A was moderated by Phil Harbutt.

Travel to School Guidelines

This webinar introduces the Travel to School Guideline, developed to support the planning and delivery 
of safe, active travel for students. 

The guideline promotes integrated, evidence-based approaches that prioritise children’s mobility, health, 
and safety within transport and land-use planning.

It provides a practical framework for planning both new and existing schools, drawing on best-practice principles, policy guidance, and implementation tools suitable for a range of school environments.

During the webinar, we explore key elements of the guideline, including:

* Integrated planning – coordinating land use, school siting, and transport infrastructure to reduce reliance on car travel.

* Collaboration – working across government, schools, and communities to achieve successful outcomes.

* Integrated solutions – combining infrastructure improvements with travel behaviour change initiatives.

* Community-informed planning– a model to ensure local knowledge shapes context-appropriate solutions.

* Case studies, tools, and resources to support implementation and evaluation.

The guideline is supported by two research reports covering the principles and best-practice evidence behind the guidance