Austroads: Transport Research and Trends

Overview of the Changes to the Guide to Road Design Part 4 Series

Austroads’ recent project has updated the Guide to Road Design (AGRD) Part 4 series. This webinar is the first in a four-part series to provide an overview of the project, including the aim, research background, methodology and outcomes.

The session outlines the new concepts and content that have been included in AGRD parts 4, 4A, 4B, 4C and the Austroads Design Vehicles and Turning Path Templates Guide.

The webinar is presented by Noel O’Callaghan and Malcolm Mak.

Austroads Project Pipeline 2023-24

This webinar is beneficial to consultants who may be interested in tendering for Austroads projects. The session covers new Austroads projects lined up for the 2023-24 financial year, Austroads process around research data collection and what is required to become a successful tenderer.

To find information about Austroads' current tenders, visit the tenders webpage. On that page, you can also subscribe to our Tenders newsletter to receive alerts when a new project is advertised.

Changes to Guide to Road Design Part 5 – Improvements to the Regional Flood Frequency Estimation Method

In response to feedback provided by industry and stakeholders, Austroads has reviewed its Guide to Road Design Part 5: Drainage – General and Hydrology Considerations.

The improved guidance responds to the implications for road authority and consulting engineering practices arising from the 2019 update of the Australian Rainfall and Runoff document.

This is the second webinar in a two-webinar series, and it covers the improvements made to the Regional Flood Frequency Estimation (RFFE) method.

The following is discussed in the session:

• Background to the RFFE method
• Recent improvements to the RFFE method
• Worked examples
• Limitations of RFFE and how to assess the quality of the answers produced

The webinar is presented by WMAwater’s Managing Director Mark Babister and William Weeks, currently a private consultant and former Director - Hydraulics and Flooding for the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Changes to the Guide to Road Design Part 5: Drainage – General and Hydrology Considerations

In response to feedback provided by industry and stakeholders, Austroads has reviewed its Guide to Road Design Part 5: Drainage – General and Hydrology Considerations.

The improved guidance responds to the implications for road authority and consulting engineering practices arising from the 2019 update of the Australian Rainfall and Runoff document.

This webinar is the first in a two-webinar series and it provides an update on the changes to the Austroads Guide to Road Design Part 5. The session focuses on Section 6 and covers the other changes. The following is covered in the session:

• Change in terminology – from average recurrence interval (ARI) to annual exceedance probability (AEP)
• Why Rational Method is no longer suitable for most cross-drainage applications
• What Rational Method is suited for (primarily longitudinal road drainage)
• An introduction to alternative flow estimation techniques (incl. regional flood frequency estimation (RFFE))
• Rare and extreme events
• Flood impacts/tunnel portals
• Safety in design
• Joint probability and uncertainty

The webinar is presented by WMAwater’s Managing Director Mark Babister and William Weeks, currently a private consultant and former Director – Hydraulics and Flooding for the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.

Using the New Edition of the Guide to Road Design Part 6

Austroads has updated the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers (AGRD Part 6) introducing new sections on the fundamentals of safety barrier systems and design advice for other road safety devices.

This webinar, presented by Dr Rod Troutbeck and Richard Fanning, focuses on the updated Section 6 providing an overview of the process to design the installation of a safety barrier.

The session describes the actions for defining the context of the installation including choosing an appropriate containment level. It also outlines the preliminary design tasks of selecting a barrier and defining its lateral and longitudinal position.

The aspects of detailed design are also described, including the installation refinements, selecting the appropriate terminal or transition and the structural design of a proposed barrier. Finally, the webinar briefly describes the documentation of the design.

Changes and New Elements of the Guide to Road Design Part 6

Austroads has updated the Guide to Road Design Part 6: Roadside Design, Safety and Barriers (AGRD Part 6) introducing new sections on the fundamentals of safety barrier systems and design advice for other road safety devices.

This webinar, presented by Dr Rod Troutbeck and Richard Fanning, covers the new structure of AGRD Part 6 and new information included as part of the current guide update focusing on the following sections:

• Section 4: Treatment Options, including options for consideration for a number of relatively common hazards
• Section 5: Fundamentals of Safety Barrier Systems, including information to assist users to make informed decisions when selecting a barrier system for a particular site
• Section 6: Road Safety Barriers, including design process.

The webinar also provides details and the research background to a number of new concepts and processes that have been included in AGRD Part 6. These include barrier flexibility as a measure of their performance, the use of working width rather than deflection, the need to choose an appropriate containment level, the use of a new concept of the departure points of redirection, the placement of barriers behind kerbs, a revised method to calculate the length of need, the need to install barriers in appropriate soils and the orientation of barriers on superelevated roadways.

Austroads Project Pipeline 2022-23

This webinar introduces Austroads new projects lined up for the 2022-23 financial year.

The session is most beneficial to consultants who may be interested in tendering for Austroads projects.

Upcoming projects focus on road network resilience, pavement design, movement and place, cycling and micromobility, future freight vehicles, road design, driver licensing, climate change risk assessment, automated and electric vehicle data exchange and provision.

Inclusion of Recent Road Safety Research in the Guide to Road Design

Guide to Road Design is Austroads’ most downloaded publication with more than 155,000 copies accessed in the last 18 months.

A recent project looked at whether improvements could be made based on recently released Austroads research. That review identified possible inclusions relating to improvements to practice focusing on Safe System, the vulnerability of motorcycles and specific heavy vehicle road design considerations.

A report “Inclusion of Recent Road Safety Research in the Guide to Road Design Phase 2” proposed updates to the Guide to Road Design, as well as suggested improvements for the Guide to Road Safety and Guide to Traffic Management. The report also detailed a process to be followed to include future research into the guides and bring any new updates into practice in an efficient and timely manner.

This webinar with Noel O’Callaghan and Malcolm Mak presents a detailed overview of the report.

Austroads Project Pipeline 2021-22

This webinar provides an overview of Austroads’ projects 2021-22 and what is required to work with Austroads.

The session is beneficial to consultants who may be interested in tendering for Austroads projects.

The projects discussed focus on data collection and management, digital engineering, tunnel design and componentry, bridge assessment, pavement technology, road design, road safety audits, driver licensing, environment reporting, and vehicle and infrastructure connectivity.

The webinar is presented by Paul Davies, Austroads Acting General Manager Operations, and program managers:

• Ross Guppy, Program Manager Transport Infrastructure
• Michael Nieuwesteeg, Program Manager Road Safety and Design
• Richard Delplace, Program Manager Transport Network Operations
• Vibeke Matthews, Acting Program Manager Future Vehicles and Technology, and Environment and Sustainability Program.

An Overview of the New Guide to Road Design Parts 1 and 7

Austroads has recently completed a project to consolidate the previous Guide to Road Design Part 1: Introduction to Road Design, Part 2: Design Considerations and Part 8: Process and Documentation into a new Part 1: Objectives of Road Design.

This update to Part 1 of the Guide to Road Design provides practitioners with a detailed description of the critical aspects of road design and essentially combines the former parts 1, 2 and 8 into one single part. This will enable Part 2 to be utilised for network design considerations in a future update and the removal of Part 8 of the Guide.

In addition, a new Part 7: New and Emerging Treatments has been created to provide information to practitioners using emerging treatments which are known to provide some benefit from a safety and/or operational perspective but have not yet produced evidence for predominant contexts.

Part 7 contains design-related knowledge, findings from research and practical experiences about new, emerging and innovative treatments. This is a holding place for information about these treatments where full guidance is not available, for all road environments or until learning from implementation/trials is captured. The intention is for this information to be migrated to the respective parts 1 to 6 of the Guide when comprehensive evidence and dimensional guidance is available.

This webinar, presented by Noel O’Callaghan and Malcolm Mak, provides an overview of the new parts 1 and 7 and explain the links to other Austroads guides as well as jurisdictional supplements.