PATREC RESEARCH PROGRAMS

PATREC Research Projects

PATREC works with government agencies and researchers on applied research across key areas including urban mobility, transport planning, land use, freight and logistics, active travel, and emerging vehicle technologies. Our projects inform policy and planning outcomes across Western Australia and beyond. Projects can be listed by year of commencement.

PROJECT PERIOD
RESEARCH AREA
STATUS
INSTITUTION

Enhancing Active Transport Infrastructure Through Video Analytics and Community Reporting

This project aims to enhance the safety of shared paths for active transport modes like cycling, eRideables and pedestrians, through a combination of video analytics and community-sourced incident data.

By leveraging UWA’s cutting-edge RoadSense Video Analytics software, the project will systematically collect videos and analyse observational data of user behaviours, movement patterns, and potential conflict hotspots. This objective video data will be complemented by a crowdsourced incident reporting web portal that is mobile phone friendly, to increase the ease of reporting for users. The portal will also incorporate a searchable database to systematically curate both video-derived and community-reported incident and near-miss data, addressing the underreporting challenge and facilitating further research.

Key outcomes of this project include a framework for ongoing systematic safety data collection, reports on identified issues and baseline “before” conditions, and improved design guidelines for safer and more inclusive shared paths. Find more information on the National Road Safety Action Grants Program which is funding this project from this link.

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A Population-Based Study Assessing the Impact of Visual Field Loss on Motor Vehicle Crashes

Globally, the older population is rapidly increasing, which has implications for road safety, particularly as most older adults continue to drive for convenience and the associated improved health outcomes. Visual fields play a crucial role in safe driving, as visual field loss can affect the detection of objects in the periphery, judging distance and speed, maintaining lane position in a curve, and anticipatory skills while driving.

Current visual standards for driving, authorised by licensing authorities, are based on visual acuity and visual fields. However, these consensus-derived standards lack robust scientific evidence on the association between visual field loss, driving ability and crash risk.

To address this limitation, we propose an innovative population-based study leveraging a large-scale specialised ophthalmic database of visual fields tests comprising 606,230 records from 92,215 participants, already linked to various population-based administrative databases, including police-reported crash data, hospitalisation records, and licensing data. The detailed nature of the visual field database surpasses any existing study in scale and depth both nationally and internationally. This wealth of data will enable us to determine precise estimates of crash risk and explore associations between the severity and location of visual field loss (e.g. superior versus inferior) that could be used to inform road safety and licensing authorities regarding fitness to drive in WA, Australia and worldwide.

Find more information on the National Road Safety Action Grants Program, which is funding this project.

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Urban – Freight vehicle usage of Perth metropolitan area roads – Regional – Grain freight activity on southern Wheatbelt roads

A qualitative understanding of freight vehicle usage per industry sector supply chain, starting with the retail industry to provide a platform for more fine-grained analytical study.

The Regional Freight project was a first attempt to gain some systematic knowledge of grain road freight usage.

Factors Affecting Travel Behaviour Change

Research to target the most appropriate travel demand management interventions for different demographic groups to reach 11% aspirational mode share targets in the transport plan for P&[email protected].

Addressing Future Uncertainties of Perth at 3.5 million: What-if Scenarios for Mass Transit

Informed the implementation of P&[email protected] million – research into LU mix and intensity at stations and activity corridors to support 11% mode share target thereby informing business plans for investment in station precincts.

Industrial land analysis – freight demand forecasting

The aim of this project is to further our understanding of Fremantle container trade and its relationship to freight transport usage across Perth and Western Australia. A particular focus of the project is to assist in the analysis of intermodal freight activity and to inform government policy aimed at improving intermodal usage into the future.

Public confidence in use and roll-out of shared, automated and electric – retirement village shuttle bus trial

This overall purpose of this project is to provide unique experimental data on the effects of exposure to and trial of a SAEV on older people’s attitudes, intentions, and behaviours relating to SAEV use.

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Managing transport system investment risk: enhancing patronage predictions and adapting strategic asset management and appraisal processes to account for emerging trends and uncertainty

For transport planners and government transport agencies, the uncertainties of emerging technologies and changing trends challenge conventional transportation decision-making, both for long- and short-term planning. The purpose of this project is to adapt key existing planning tools, guidelines and frameworks to account for uncertainty of changing trends and emerging technologies. This will enable the Transport Portfolio of WA to better manage transport infrastructure investment risks.

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Enhanced vehicle detection at traffic signals and on smart freeways

The project will investigate alternative vehicle detection technologies for traffic signal control and smart freeway operations through a comparative desktop analysis and field trials of shortlisted technologies at two locations (intersection and freeway). This research will be used to inform decisions on future traffic network investments, primarily through the future enhanced detection installation business case and delivery strategy, particularly for future smart freeway projects.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Econometrics, land use inputs, and strategic transport models

The project will improve the interactions between urban transport and land use systems, especially at the level of individual decision makers (households and enterprises). It will approach this through the provision of advanced econometric support in a practical implementation of a bid-rent model structure and parameter estimation as part of a newly established land use model. This will produce robust and high-quality household and business activity inputs to transport modelling.

This is necessary to facilitate the understanding of impacts of new and emerging transport technologies and behaviour changes (including the effects of autonomous vehicles, shared vehicle ownership, shared car driving and ride-sharing, and voluntary household behavioural change), enabling the land use model to better estimate behavioural responses through the incorporation of location choices of households and business.

This research will contribute to providing an enhanced understanding of:

  • the econometrics theory underlying the model
  • estimating and using the bid function

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Australian Transport Research Cloud (ATRC)

By providing transport researchers with streamlined access to the key datasets and open source analysis and modelling tools necessary to address complex transport issues facing our cities, the new Australian Transport Research Cloud (ATRC) will deliver the requisite knowledge base to inform smarter transport management, planning and policy making.

A collaboration between Australian transport researchers, planners and policy makers (from government, industry and private sector), the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). This project will provide a common platform comprising data, tools, storage, compute to support the needs of the Australian transport research community, by extending the existing AURIN platform.

Find more information on ARDC website:

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A Smart Transport Technology Roadmap for Perth

This project aims to identify promising technologies that can best address key transport and mobility challenges in Perth, Western Australia (WA) and outline a Smart Transport Technology Roadmap for the next three to five years.

Reduced traffic throughput, higher crash rates, reduced public transport reliability, reduced walkability and increased fuel consumption and emissions are features of WA’s increasingly congested roads. The timely development and implementation of technology solutions (or Intelligent Transport Systems, ITS) to enable a safe, efficient and seamless transport system is essential to supporting the State’s future productivity and liveability.

For several years, RAC has been calling on the Federal and State Governments to commit funding for the planning and deployment of smart transport technologies to improve safety, efficiency and reliability for all road users.

This project will support RAC’s social impact activities by recommending the most beneficial Roadmap option for Perth through Strategic Analysis (Stage 1), and Options Identification (Stage 2).

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Working from home: Changes in transport demand in Perth

Focusing on Perth, WA, this project aims to ascertain the extent to which Working from Home (WFH) has been undertaken and will continue to be. Digging deeper, the project will look at aspects such as:

  • the productivity impact when WFH is compared to the workplace, from the perspectives of individuals, employers, and the economy at large
  • the proportion of reduced travel demand that is attributable to WFH
  • the utility of WFH as a future demand management tool for the mitigation of congestion on all transport networks
  • the potential for higher levels of WFH to enable expansions of the transport network to be deferred or avoided; and the facilitation steps that would be required if it became desirable to expand the level of WFH in the longer term

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Modelling perimeter controls: Detailed simulation

In our previous project (Improved network performance prediction through data-driven analytics and simulation), we have numerically simulated perimeter control (gating) based on macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFDs). The results demonstrated the benefit of gating and how the Perth road network could be optimally divided into multiple zones for this purpose.
As the next step towards operationalising it in Perth, this proposed project aims to extend the work by more detailed simulation of traffic behaviour and gating strategies. It will produce better estimates of the potential benefits and effectiveness of the MFD-based controllers and enable Main Roads to make informed decisions. It will pave the way for an actual trial if the estimated benefits are significant.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

Perth Freight Route Priority System Trial Evaluation

MRWA have a well-managed road network, handling high freight vehicle volume on some routes, such as Fremantle to Kewdale. Freight vehicles are slow to start when stopped at traffic signals, thus leading to slow moving traffic following it. A Freight Route Priority (FRP) system will be trialled with the aim of reducing the number of stopping and starting events for freight and improve the overall travel time of freight vehicles on the route. The purpose of this research project is to evaluate the trial, analysing data from the various systems involved as well as conducting a survey of road users to answer questions regarding the effectiveness of FRP solution in improving traffic performance along freight routes, as well as assessing the impacts of FRP on all road users, inclusive of heavy freight vehicle operators. Enabling FRP across key intersections is expected to yield significant benefits to both the Freight Industry and MRWA, including reduced congestion, stop/start noise, vehicle emissions, fuel consumption and improved safety for all road users. The research will provide an objective and analytical outcome to assist MRWA with their future planning and decision making with regards to FRP.

Developing a low-powered edge camera system for pedestrian and cyclist surveys

To develop a vision-based, low powered, edge device for traffic survey purposes. Although there are already some commercial products for pedestrian detection, most need to be powered by the grid. Meanwhile, MetroCount’s customer feedback shows a potentially large market demand for an off-the-grid device for pedestrian counting. This gap is addressed by combining expertise in hardware (MetroCount) with the research team’s computer vision software development expertise.

Using a data-driven approach to improve intersection modelling

Accurate traffic models are essential to test the effectiveness of road and infrastructure designs. In the absence of site-specific data, traffic modellers often use default parameters or apply rules of thumb. As a result, model predictions often deviate from reality and subsequent costly project reworks are needed.
This PhD project investigates the use of big data and advanced mathematical techniques to better model the traffic flow at intersections. Based on high-quality trajectory data extracted with modern video content analytic techniques, it aims to improve parameters estimation for existing commercial modelling packages and to develop a novel data-driven model.

It also looks to obtain deeper insights about the complex traffic dynamics at intersections through a comparison study between the different models.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

Transport predictive solution Stage 2: AI and real-time simulation

This project aims to offer a real-time decision support tool for traffic operations centres to predict traffic congestion on the network, quickly assess the impact of unplanned events and evaluate the mitigation potential of several possible responses.
Such a solution will help reduce congestion, especially in non-recurrent situations, and significantly increase travel time reliability.

The use of tools to facilitate longer-term prediction of how transportation networks will perform in the future is a well-established practice in strategic planning by transport authorities. Tools to support day-to-day operations, relying on short-term predictions, are in their infancy, especially in Australia.

Particular objectives to enhance short-term prediction performance are:

  1. Smart sensing for enhanced travel demand estimation; and
  2. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for calibration against much larger real-time datasets

The WA node will focus on (2) developing and testing improved model calibration capability for both live and offline models, ensuring prediction accuracy for any hour of the day, seven days a week.

This research proposes to improve model calibration and the accuracy of 24 hour/ 7-day models (live and offline) for not just the AM and PM peaks but any hour of any day. The research results will be tested in a WA Aimsun Live network pilot model, developed as part of the more comprehensive project. Further evaluation and performance accessibility of tools developed in this research will be performed in QLD Aimsun Live network model.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

The TRavel, Environment and Kids (TREK) Study: 15 years on

This project aims to update and expand the TRavel, Environment and Kids study (TREK) conducted in Perth in 2005. It will investigate school walkability, parent- and student-reported individual, social and environmental factors influencing school transport modes, and latent demand for walking and cycling to school.
Fewer Australian children walk and bike ride to school than ever before. Increasing the prevalence of active school transport is a public health priority and would result in numerous health, environmental, and economic benefits. In Perth, WA, the declining rate of active school transport has been identified as a problem requiring multiple government agency responses to reverse the decline.

Schools and neighbourhoods with the greatest need for connectivity improvements, safety treatments and programs to address parental concerns, will be identified, as well as any other insights for increasing the rates of walking, riding, and use of other micromobility options to travel to school.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Smart bridge health monitoring and maintenance prediction

This project aims to investigate the feasibility of using an integrated package of IoT, computer vision, and machine learning technologies to support smart bridge health monitoring and prediction.
Integrated IoT, computer vision, and machine learning technologies offer a promising supplement to physical bridge health assessment particularly in remote regional contexts which can be costly, time consuming and unsafe to inspect. Conducting regular, efficient, and reliable bridge health monitoring is essential for the long-term protection of valuable road assets through timely maintenance responses.

The research from this project will produce a proof-of-concept to demonstrate the efficacy and feasibility of an integrated package of technologies for first-level bridge health screening and early warning system, reducing the need for traditional physical inspections and instrumentation.

The benefits of the project include contributing to reducing maintenance, operation costs and risk, and achieving a safe transport infrastructure network, ultimately, increasing productivity.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

Realtime model to estimate delays at traffic signals

This project will develop a pilot model that utilises secondary datasets (e.g. signal timing data) within Main Roads Western Australia to estimate overall delay at intersections in real-time.
Real-time information, especially delay time at intersections, is valuable for traffic operations but is not readily available and costly to procure. Existing data sources that Main Roads has access to do not currently provide this information at a useful level of accuracy.

Such a model would allow Main Roads to determine the delay at a network, intersection, or at an approach level, while not requiring any additional sensor equipment or expensive data licensing agreements. It would inform decisions relating to network operational strategies and road project development.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

Defining transport disadvantage in Perth

The provision of transport infrastructure and services plays a critical role in connecting communities to essential services, as well as to employment and social activities. A lack of access to transport can lead to disadvantage in many forms and can be influenced by many variables.
To better understand transport disadvantage in Greater Perth this project will involve a literature review and stakeholder interviews to identify and apply locally relevant indicators to guide the estimation of the extent, spatial distribution, and nature of transport disadvantage in the Greater Perth region.

Drawing on the findings, an overview of how transport disadvantage is affecting travel decisions will be provided. Recomendations for further action by all levels of government and other key service providers will be developed, with the aim of building upon existing approaches to address areas of need.

The recommendations will identify the potential for new and research-informed initiatives that builds upon existing approaches and local experience contributing to addressing the needs of the beneficiaries (i.e. transport users, governments and community).

Find more information on iMOVE website:

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Improving roundabout modelling using drone video analytics

This project proposes the development of evidence-based parameter estimation methods to improve Main Roads Western Australia’s roundabout modelling practice and operational guidelines by accounting for various local conditions such as geometry, topography, location type (residential, industrial, rural etc.), traffic mix, and seasonality, as well as driving behaviour. The data will be used to develop dedicated roundabout models for Aimsun at micro-, meso- and macroscopic levels.

Models play a vital role in supporting decision-making at both strategic and operational levels in the transport industry. In this project, we focus on roundabouts, where significant delays on arterial roads occur. Designers rely on traffic models to test design performance, so the quality of model predications directly affects the quality of roundabout design. Data is the foundation of modelling but conventional manual traffic surveys are deficient in both quality and quantity.

Although a wide range of sophisticated software tools for traffic modelling have been developed over the years, the lack of abundant high-quality data hinders model calibration, validation, and continuous development to account for changing driving behaviour and local conditions.

This project addresses both quality and quantity problems in traffic data by applying the latest drone video analytics technology developed by University of Western Australia (UWA) researchers to inform and improve roundabout modelling.

Find more information on iMOVE website:

PATREC Research programs

research projects

PATREC works with government agencies and researchers on applied research across key areas including urban mobility, transport planning, land use, freight and logistics, active travel, and emerging vehicle technologies. Our projects inform policy and planning outcomes across Western Australia and beyond. Projects are listed by year of commencement.

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