Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Austroads has published a report that identifies improvements to guidance, education and practice to ensure the fundamental objectives of road design are achieved in new and existing road projects.
The project identified factors that contribute to the fundamental objectives of road design not being achieved.
The project concluded that the design guidance in Australia is technically sound but it does not adequately inform designers how to achieve the objectives of road design while balancing competing project objectives, nor how to evaluate a design to determine if the objectives of road design have been achieved.
The report provides a foundational road design definition and a series of road design principles that it recommends be incorporated into the Austroads Guide to Road Design.
It recommends:
- better educating designers and practitioners on the importance of road design objectives and how to achieve them
- improving design development and evaluation guidance to enable designers to apply robust engineering judgment, value engineering, Safe System principles, and assess whole-of-life costs
- providing evaluation tools to encourage the development and evaluation of multiple design solutions
- adapting existing design practices including requiring practitioners to demonstrate how design solutions achieve the objectives of road design.
Report link: Fundamental Objectives of Road Design