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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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AURIN WA Node to support CA in transport and land use planning research

A new PATREC program of research commenced in 2023 with three foundation projects, responding to WA government-identified need: Feasibility of battery-electric buses for regional school bus services; Mapping the Circular Economy of WA: Monitoring the contributions of circularity towards achieving Net Zero; and Accounting for carbon in the planning for new residential suburbs. Funding for second stages of these projects, as well as for new projects, has been agreed by PATREC and iMOVE CRC to be undertaken in 2025 and 2026.

Data and tools are a significant part of each project, providing the ideal opportunity to establish an enabling research infrastructure to support the new program of research: CATLUP – Climate action in transport and land use planning, comprising data and tools, as the basis for a longer-term indicator-based monitoring system to measure, monitor and drive enhanced resource efficiency and environmental performance towards net zero emissions of WA cities.
AURIN-WA will produce tools for transport and land use planning research, with a climate action focus. In turn these tools will deliver impact case studies across industry and government, and secondary users.

The National Cycling Data and Analysis Platform (NCDAP)

A National Cycling Data and Analytics Platform to collect, integrate and communicate new and historic data on cycling infrastructure, attitudes, and behaviours. This project will address the significant issue of data fragmentation, pilot a national cycling survey, and develop a cycling toolkit to allow exploring and testing various cycling infrastructure scenarios. The platform will provide an open access e-Infrastructure to enable tracking social and cultural changes that influence transport choices, create effective behaviour change programs and prioritise cycling infrastructure investment. This project will contribute to healthier lifestyles, reduced traffic congestion and emissions and energy efficiency of Australia’s transport sector.

Evaluation of an HVO renewable diesel trial pilot

To evaluate the trial of the use of HVO100 in the construction of the Byford Rail Extension (Metronet) to provide a third-party review of the suitability of HVO as a fuel source to achieve low carbon outcomes in the construction stages of the asset lifecycle and create increased confidence in the market to use the renewable diesel:

• Review the international experience in the use of HVO and other biofuels
• Analyse environmental benefits and economic viability of biofuels
• Establish an evaluation framework to measure the trial outcomes
• Collect on-site telematics data to understand the benefits and provide confidence in the fuel