About 1100 vehicle-pedestrian crashes occur in Melbourne metropolitan area every year. Identifying the temporal and spatial patterns of pedestrian injuries is essential to enhance the safety of these vulnerable road users. In this paper, Decision Tree (DT) and interactive DT are applied to identify the influence of temporal, spatial and personal characteristics on vehicle-pedestrian crash severity. DT is a simple but powerful form of data analyses using machine learning technique. Result of DT indicates that time of crash is the most significant variable in classifying and predicting the severity of vehicle-pedestrian crashes in Melbourne metropolitan area. According to this model, accidents occurring between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. are more severe than other times. Moreover, spatial correlation shows that there are positive correlation between time and location of crashes. Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) is applied to explore the spatial distribution of vehiclepedestrian crashes. KDE results show that most vehicle-pedestrian crashes between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. occur around hotels, clubs and bars. Safety measures should be applied around these areas to assist in preventing and reducing the severity of vehicle-pedestrian crashes.
Autonomous vehicle technology and its potential effects on traffic and daily activities is a popular topic in the media and in the research community. It is anticipated that AVs will reduce accidents, improve congestion, increase the utility of time spent travelling and reduce social exclusion. However, knowledge about the way in which AVs will function in a transport system is still modest and a recent international study showed a lower familiarity with AVs in Australia compared to the USA and UK. Attitudes towards fully automated driving (or higher levels of autonomy) range from 'excitement' to 'suspicion'. The breadth of feelings may be due to the low level of awareness or reflect polarising attitudinal positions. Whilst experts appear to be more confident about the adoption of AV technology in the near future, public acceptance is key to AVs' market success. Hence, research that examines local contexts and opinions is needed.This paper reviews existing scholarly work and identifies gaps and directions for future developments, with a focus on the Australian context. The review will address the following broad categories: investigation of AV features and mobility models, implications for road traffic and connectivity to infrastructure (especially in low to medium density urban areas), public attitudes and concerns, travel behaviour and demand, potential business models, and policy implications. The aims of the paper are to identify critical issues for the development of a focus group inquiry to understand attitudes of potential users of AVs and to highlight AV development issues for policy makers in Australia.
Using smart card systems for public transport fare collection has provided a great opportunity to access large-scale and high-quality travel data of transit users. This data has the potential to be used for modelling passenger behaviour. In this paper, Bayesian statistical inference is used to model passenger route-choice behaviour and to estimate attributes of travel-time components. The Bayesian approach provides a comprehensive posterior knowledge of the system. The posterior density integrates the observed passenger travel data with our prior knowledge about the transit network. Due to the high dimensional nature of the parameter space, the Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method is utilised to compute the mean value for each parameter. The suggested model is calibrated and validated using the fare card data from Brisbane, Australia, for March 2013. The dataset contains those journeys with an educational purpose. The inference results for link travel times are compared with the scheduled times from Brisbane's General Transit Feed Specification to show the reliability of public transport services. The estimated route-choice parameters indicate that transfer time is seven times more important than in-vehicle time for transit passengers.
Over the decades, public transportation has been less focused on holistic and integrated town planning designs and has not coped with the rapid pace of car-centric, low-density developments. Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) principles are expected to substantially contribute towards achieving accessible, affordable and comfortable public transport services for low-density Australian communities. From the point of view of comparative infrastructure development, timeframe and costs, bus-based TOD systems (BTODs) seem to be more appropriate than rail-based TOD systems (RTODs) in the Australian context, where bus-based transport routes already play a significant role in the overall transportation system of some cities. Transit passenger densities in corridor catchments of low-medium density suburban environments are better suited to buses than light or heavy rail transit which require large commuter volumes. Buses also offer greater flexibility supporting feeder services in addition to serving trunk routes, and potentially have a much greater reach beyond high passenger density transit corridors. This paper investigates and formulates policies on how bus-based transit can be used in achieving transit-oriented development through successfully implementing TOD principles with bus transit within the context of Australian cities. This paper will analyse existing land use and demographic data along a bus route on a suburban arterial road to identify the suitability of the land for higher density developments that would potentially make the transformation of a bus route into a transit corridor viable. The selection criteria in undertaking land suitability analysis to achieve 'concentrated densities around the nodes' will also be discussed. The findings of this research will be of value in developing a methodology for undertaking an extensive demographic and land use analysis for the purposes of developing a BTOD model to transition low-density, car-dependent Australian cities towards more transit-oriented and environmentally sustainable urban environments.
In Australia, passenger cars represent the predominant form of transportation. This is especially the case in regional and rural contexts, where public transport infrastructure is sparse and the use of active transport methods can be impractical. The ability to drive a car thus brings with it an increased amount of mobility, potentially opening up employment opportunities for drivers that may not have been possible otherwise. This is particularly relevant to young people, where the minimum driver licensing age directly controls when they can begin driving unsupervised. The minimum driver licensing age varies across Australian states and territories. Victoria has the highest minimum age (18 years); however, a parliamentary inquiry is currently exploring whether to reduce this age to 17 years. This paper examines the association between the minimum driver licensing age and youth employment rates across Australian jurisdictions. Descriptive statistical comparisons and linear regression analysis on data from the 2011 Australian Census was used to achieve this aim. Both methods failed to establish a clear association between the minimum licensing age and youth employment, implying that a lower licensing age is unlikely to be associated with economic advantage for young adults. The findings suggest that wider socio-economic forces hold a larger possible impact on the ability of young people to gain employment, compared to licensing policy specifically. This result has crucial implications on how the merits of a younger licensing age should be discussed.
This study presents a formula that can be used to estimate changes in travel time variability following the implementation of a transport scheme. The formula was derived by estimating the 'UK model' for travel time reliability using comprehensive data collected in Australia and New Zealand over a two-month period in 2015. Estimates are based on a cross-section of 2702 streets in ten cities, recording average travel time and its standard deviation. The results of this econometric analysis indicate a similar relationship to the one derived in the UK, but with differences in the magnitude of the estimated effects. This study also demonstrates how to use the estimated relationship to forecast changes in travel time variability following the implementation of a transport scheme, and how these changes can be used to estimate a monetary value of reliability benefits for inclusion in further cost-benefit analyses.
The rain and flood events across Queensland between 2010 and 2013 showed that the road network is more exposed to damage from such events than desirable, with between 23% and 62% of the state-controlled network closed or with limited access over four consecutive summers. With increasingly uncertain climatic factors and stretched infrastructure budgets, efficient optimisation and prioritisation of works is critical to the overall network condition. Historically, works programs were focused on highest priority treatments, which in some cases resulted in an overall deterioration in network condition over time, as measured by indicators such as roughness and seal age. Strategic timely maintenance and rehabilitation programs are thought to be preferable to one-off major reconstruction programs such as the recently completed Transport Network Reconstruction Program (TNRP). There is a need to review pavement management, maintenance and rehabilitation practices to decrease this exposure to damage in a cost-effective manner. A project under the National Assets Centre of Excellence (NACOE) program has analysed the life-cycle costing implications of rain and flood events in Queensland. This has been undertaken through a series of case studies under three different strategies; a base case mirroring actual experience with a limited rehabilitation and maintenance budget, a 'stitch-in-time' approach with reduced intervention thresholds and reduced event impacts, and a 'full resilience' approach incorporating extensive reconstruction and a vision of full flood immunity. The seven case studies revealed that the approach to minimising the life-cycle cost of major rain and flood events is related to traffic volumes, whereby low-volume remote links may be best suited to adopt a strategy of targeting routine maintenance and value-for-money treatments, while higher-volume rural highways would see value in more substantial treatments to avoid costly closures. Sensitivity analyses were conducted, looking at the impact of varying reseal intervals and varied recurrence intervals of major rain and flood events. The project also draws network-wide conclusions to categorise the overall network effect of each of the three strategies.
Highlights of the new Israeli geometric design policy and controls for rural (interurban) highways and urban freeways are outlined. The major objective of these design controls was to establish uniform rules and determine design values that would function as guidelines but not as mandatory regulations. The recommended design controls did not intend to limit the engineering view of thinking, but they do provide a desirable framework in which to present design options and enable the highway engineer to cope with non-conventional situations during the design process. The paper's introduction documents the objectives of the design controls. Its major part gives an overview of recently selected developments in design policy, highway classification and cross section, safety considerations, and sight distance. Potential ideas and improvements which can be taken into consideration in Australian highway design guidelines are: target speed vs. design speed concept, characteristics of highway category based on design speed, cross section, and LOS for design, 1+1 intermediate cross section, passing lanes, Level of Service criteria for widening two lane highway to divided multilane highway, and implementation of sight distance design policy.
In recent years, SIDRA software has been widely used in the evaluation of intersection performance due to its ease of application and accuracy of results. However, SIDRA has limitations when used for signal controlled roundabouts with signals on two or more approaches. In addition, only a few studies have investigated the performance of signalised roundabout controls. This research, therefore, explores signal operations on two approaches of the Old Belair Road roundabout in Adelaide. Furthermore, a new method representing a roundabout using a four-node intersection is proposed, and the modelling and calibration will be illustrated. In order to validate the developed model, the results from the four-node intersection are compared with AIMSUN 7. The outcomes from the analysis demonstrate that the maximum queue length in each approach matches up to 95%, whereas the delay time and the level of service in SIDRA are slightly higher than in AIMSUN 7.
This contribution explores the rich and varied tapestry of road development and use in the future. It has resulted from collaboration between ARRB and the NanoComm Hub in the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University.
ARRB, in conjunction with three rural based shires in the Australian states of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales (NSW), has completed a four-year study of the performance of unsealed road samples in these shires. The study aimed to quantify the immediate and longer-term impact of grader blading and surface re-sheeting on unsealed road performance. Measurement of base line road roughness, using a Roughometer, was undertaken on selected survey sections in each unsealed road network. These sections were selected on the basis of a pre-existing maintenance works program. Roughness was measured before and after the maintenance works. Other variables influencing performance were also quantified including traffic and climatic conditions. The study involved data assembly, performance analysis and documentation of the resulting refined models derived from roughness data collected to improve the existing road deterioration (RD) and works effects (WE) models. A piecewise regression approach was applied to the roughness data before and after maintenance. This approach generated more meaningful WE models that can be made available to local government to improve their asset management capability on unsealed roads.
Pricing the use of roads is an increasingly debated subject in Australian transport policy discourse, with a number of recent governmental reports supporting more cost-reflective pricing. This paper updates our 2011 estimate of the fuel excise (tax) rate that would make light vehicle (petrol-fuelled) road users accountable for the external costs associated with their road use. The resulting estimate implies a significant increase on the current fuel excise rate, which poses challenges for political decision-making. The paper suggests a pathway towards implementation, which recognises that the most appropriate longer-term solution will most likely be mass, distance, location based charging rather than fuel excise.
Major high-speed roads are prevalent in urban areas, and thus there are space constraints in roadside design, particularly when the roadside needs to accommodate both road safety barriers and road noise barriers. A combined road safety barrier and road noise barrier structure is termed a Safety Noise Barrier (SNB). This study was established to better understand the issues surrounding structural design of SNBs, with a particular emphasis on crashworthy SNBs that are capable of achieving a crash test level rating of Test Level 5 (TL-5). A theoretical impact loading model was created after reviewing crash test literature and conducting an indicative vehicle-SNB crash simulation. A design load of 500 kN was established. Incorporating some design scope limitations, nine SNB options were developed, and these were priced and analysed through an eight-variable multi-criteria analysis process. A cost analysis found that SNB options based on a standard slip-formed TL-5 concrete barrier were cheaper than the systems based on discrete posts with longitudinal rails. Also, the use of the TL-5 single slope barrier as a safety barrier element was preferred to the discrete post arrangements. Rigid SNB systems were also clearly favoured over flexible and partially flexible systems.
Fiji's first national Household Travel Survey (HTS) was conducted in 2015 with a representative sample across the country. It achieved a response rate of 89%. In designing a methodology for the survey, the key question was whether to work with and apply an accepted standard methodology, or to develop and produce a bespoke methodology specifically for Fiji.This paper describes the methodology used in the Fiji HTS; how a face-to-face survey method with memory joggers was adapted and proved well suited to the Fiji context. It outlines the main considerations in developing the survey methodology including: the differences in activity patterns of those living in rural areas; the task of developing a workable sampling structure; how to recruit households in the absence of an address resource; and how to geocode stop locations. It comments on the most significant data collection challenges including low levels of reported travel and respondents with multiple homes. It also shows the importance of defining an out-of-home activity as a destination in community situations - something which could be equally applicable to travel in situations such as within retirement villages in Australia. It concludes with presentation of the headline results and commentary on the value of this knowledge to transport planning in Fiji. It is expected that the survey will be repeated for the next two years.
This paper describes a number of road infrastructure safety treatments applied internationally, evaluated and shown to be highly effective in reducing road trauma. However, their application within Australia and New Zealand has been limited to date. Based on several projects conducted on behalf of Austroads and for individual road agencies, this paper brings together the evidence on road safety effectiveness of these treatments, and makes the case for greater use of each. These treatments include: raised intersection and midblock platforms, wombat (raised pedestrian) crossings, road diet, signalised roundabouts, rest-on-red signals, consistent curve design and treatment, wide centreline treatments, vehicle-activated signs for curves and intersections, and gateway treatments. The paper shows how many of these have been applied successfully on both high-speed rural and lower-speed urban arterial roads.
and implementation of energy efficient pavements with low rolling resistance DTU Orbit (18/11/2019) Implementing energy efficient pavements: A socio-economic analysis of the development and implementation of energy efficient pavements with low rolling resistance The demand for the implementation of more energy efficient means to reduce carbon and particle emissions is increasing. Within the transportation sector, lowering carbon emissions is a high priority for the European Commission which is required to meet specific targets. A key driver for the transportation sector is to make road networks more energy efficient by implementing pavements with low rolling resistance, leading to lower fuel consumption. Through a series of projects focusing on reducing rolling resistance conducted since 2010, the Danish Road Directorate (DRD) has developed a durable, energy-efficient asphalt pavement. Socio-economic analyses conducted to quantify the benefit to society associated with implementing these asphalt pavements have demonstrated very high benefits. The demonstrated results in terms of durability, energy efficiency and socio-economics have resulted in substantial government funding being provided for demonstration trials on 50 kilometers of energy-efficient pavement in 2018. The implementation of energyefficient pavements will enable Denmark to contribute to the out-of-quota 2030-emission cuts in line with EU regulations.
To date, great efforts have been dedicated to develop pavement-deterioration models for low-volume roads. The reliability and usefulness of such models in a pavement-management system stem from using accurate datasets with suitable modelling approaches. The aim of this study is to present an approach for developing absolute empirical deterioration models that are capable of capturing the effects of unobserved variables and correlation errors of time series data for same sections. Multilevel regression analysis has been carried out to develop models for predicting pavement rutting progression as a function of a number of contributing variables, such as traffic loading, pavement strength, climate and drainage condition. This paper presents the modelling approach and developed rutting progression models, during the gradual phase, for two classes of low-volume roads. The results indicate that the effect of time is greater than the other contributing factors on rutting progression. Accuracy and reliability of the developed models are tested using simulation and validation. Deterministic simulation has shown that the developed models can simulate rut depth values and progression rates reasonably well under different typical conditions.
