Date: Wednesday, 21 October 2020
Location: Online, 1:00 – 2:00pm AEDT
Organiser: Austroads
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Introducing automated vehicles could dramatically impact the Australian and New Zealand travelling public’s driving experience and the industry’s approach to road safety and road design. This journey will undoubtedly take many years and considerable efforts in partnerships, testing, certification, design and legislation. A growing range of vehicles already available in the market offer automated-steering functions enabled by Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS). Their performance depends on the vehicle’s technology and the environment where they are used. Greater consistency and quality in pavement markings will benefit not only automated vehicles but also all road users.
This webinar will focus on the outcomes of the Austroads research project, which was conducted to understand how longitudinal pavement markings affect automated steering functions and how existing design and maintenance practices could be improved.
The authors of the study will give a summary of the literature review, outline stakeholder discussions, road trials and data analysis findings. They will also present key recommendations to increase the road safety benefits that lane markings provide for advanced drivers assistance systems and what future changes road agencies can make to optimise road design, maintenance and operation for automated vehicles in the future.
Presented by Julien Marr, April Zhang, Scott Benjamin and John Wall.
There will be question and answer opportunities at the end of the session.
Julien Marr is the Intelligent Transport Lead for Victoria at WSP. After a lengthy period in government developing or significantly contributing to high profile state projects including the M80 Ring Road Upgrade, CityLink Tullamarine Westgate Upgrade, Monash Freeway Upgrade and West Gate Tunnel he moved to the private sector in 2017. He has led a number of technical design and advisory projects while at WSP in the fields of active traffic management, connected and automated vehicles, and managed motorways.
April Zhang is an Intelligent Transport engineer at WSP. She has experience in consulting, government and technical academia since 2012 across Australia, Singapore and China. She has worked in a range of civil disciplines, including Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), connected and automated vehicles, traffic engineering and structural engineering. Over the past few years, her focus has been on developing expertise in ITS, road safety and data analysis utilising her strong technical capability and project management acumen. Her recent projects include the Connected and Automated Vehicle Shuttle Trial Framework, Hobart Southern Outlets T3 Lane ITS Design and Vulnerable Road User Safety Improvement.
Scott Benjamin is an ITS Technical Director at WSP. He is also a fellow of the Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) and past Victorian State President and National board member. He has over 20 years’ experience in the development of policy, strategy, feasibility studies, design, implementation and operation and maintenance of a wide variety of ITS for public and private clients. He has a strong background in systems engineering and development of frameworks to support policy and strategy functions as well as deployment of ITS. His recent work has focused specifically on seeking to maximise the benefits of disruptive technology trends for public and private clients, notably: Connected and Automated Vehicles and sensor and dissemination technologies in Smart Cities deployments including ongoing support to the Australian Integrated Multimodal Ecosystem (AIMES) with Melbourne University, the Armidale Regional Driverless Initiative and a range of strategic initiatives relating to cooperative ITS initiatives in NSW and QLD.
John Wall is the Austroads Program Manager, Future Vehicles and Technology and is recognised as one of Australia's leading specialists in the application of Intelligent Transport Systems for road safety. John has over 25 years of experience in the development of road safety strategies and countermeasures and holds tertiary qualifications in agricultural science, education and public health.