Date: Thursday, 17 March 2022
Location: Online, 1:00 – 2:00pm AEDT
Organiser: Austroads
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Physical road infrastructure such as pavement markings and signals may have an important role to play to support the uptake of automated vehicles (AVs). Austroads has recently completed a project to provide road agencies with clear advice on investing in physical infrastructure to support the operation of AVs.
This webinar will provide a detailed overview of the advice that addresses which infrastructure types should be prioritised for investment, as well as the timing and scale for that investment.
The advice has been developed against a backdrop of significant uncertainty around the future of AVs. These uncertainties include the year high-level AVs will become market-ready and the level of reliance of future AVs on physical infrastructures. To inform the development of the advice, the project first undertook an uptake forecast, an infrastructure assessment and economic analysis.
Having accounted for the various uncertainties of future AVs, the project has found the greatest return can be achieved by investments that will:
- support current lower capability AVs
- offer some advantages for human drivers
- be strategically relevant to future higher-level AVs.
The webinar will be presented by Andrew Somers, Simon Xue and Elnaz Irannezhad.
There will be opportunities for questions and answers at the end of the session.
Andrew Somers is a specialist consultant in future mobility and ITS and Director of Transoptim. He has extensive experience in ITS and network operations, with a focus on practical approaches to apply innovative technologies and operational strategies to deliver real outcomes. Andrew undertook the Future Vehicles 2030 and 2031 forecasts for Austroads and was Austroads project manager for this project.
Dr Elnaz (Elli) Irannezhad is a Principal Professional and the Next Generation Transport systems Portfolio Leader at the Australian Road Research Board. Elli has over 16 years of combined commercial and research experience in the transportation engineering, modelling and planning sector. Her research in ARRB focuses on future fuel, future vehicles, heavy vehicles, mobility as a service, transport modelling and simulation, choice modelling, and behavioural econometric.
Simon Xue is a Transport Economist in the Sustainability and Material Performance Team at the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB). He specialises in undertaking quantitative policy and investment evaluations within the transport sector. During his time ARRB, Simon has prepared cost-benefit analysis and strategic advice for a variety of transport agencies including ATAP, Austroads, state and local road agencies. In this project, Simon led Parts A and D of the report. Simon holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Melbourne.
No charge but registration is essential.
Can’t make the live session? Register and we’ll send you a link to the recording.