Tenders

PURPOSE:

Austroads seeks responses from appropriately experienced service providers to research, identify, and develop practical ways to lift agency capability and enable jurisdictional knowledge sharing in the collection and management of data on:

• fauna impacts (such as wildlife-vehicle collisions), and
• the effectiveness of impact mitigation measures (such as fencing, crossings and connectivity structures, and emerging approaches including technological solutions).

SCOPE:

This project seeks to answer four key questions:

1. What priority data is needed to understand and monitor fauna impacts across the road network?
2. What priority data is needed to plan, prioritise and evaluate fauna impact mitigation measures?
3. What are the most practical and cost-effective ways to support agencies to consistently collect, acquire and manage this data?
4. How can agencies grow their data capability in this area and learn from each other?

The project will be delivered in three Phases. These project-specific phases describe the progression from research and options assessment through to development, approval and publication. They operate within the Austroads Common Milestones framework described in the Methodology section.

Phase 1: Research, consultation and analysis

In Phase 1, the project will deliver a feasibility and options assessment to determine preferred options in the near-term to support agencies to consistently collect, acquire and manage priority data on fauna impacts and on impact mitigation measures across the road network, for the purpose of:

• monitoring - of fauna impacts across the road network – longitudinal baseline data, trends, etc.
• planning – e.g., prioritising fauna impact hotspot mitigation works, wildlife connectivity across road networks, ecosystem resilience
• evaluation – determining the effectiveness of impact mitigation measures

The study will review international and local best practice, existing data sets and approaches used across jurisdictions, identify levels of data maturity and needs for agencies, and assess the options to support agencies.

In this Phase the project will also develop an agency fauna impact and mitigation data capability framework and maturity model, and using this framework assess the current capability maturity of agencies and propose learning models for agencies to learn from what works, and what does not.

Phase 1 concludes with a Hold Point where the Environment and Sustainability Task Force considers the preferred options and agrees those that will continue to Phase 2 for development subject to budget availability.

Phase 2: Agreed options development

The project team develops the agreed options as determined by the Task Force.

Phase 3: Approvals, publication and knowledge sharing

During this Phase, the draft Research Report from Phase 1 and the Agreed option(s) developed in Phase 2 are formally reviewed and approved by the Task Force, Board and Publications Team. A webinar is delivered following publication.

DELIVERABLES:

This project will produce the following deliverables:

• Phase 0: Project initiation and planning
  • Data Management Plan
  • Phase 1 Stakeholder Engagament Plan
  • Final Project Management Plan
• Phase 1 Research report including:
  • literature review
  • a fit-for-purpose agency fauna impact and mitigation data capability framework and maturity model
  • jurisdictions’ key fauna impact and mitigation decisions, the minimum data needed to support those decisions
  • existing data sources, collection approaches and agency fauna impact and mitigation data capability/maturity assessment
  • practical and cost-effective options for supporting agency fauna impact and mitigation data capability and knowledge sharing
  • a framework to evaluate which of these options should progress to Phase 2
  • preferred near-term option proposals for Phase 2.
• Phase 2 deliverables to be determined through Phase 1, and include potential development of:
  • model common data standards and guidance for jurisdictions’ consideration
  • improvements to existing jurisdiction-level systems
  • opportunities to partner with others (e.g. iNaturalist/CSIRO) and leverage existing data platforms
  • a shared simple low-cost tool (e.g. Excel-based)
  • other options as identified through the literature review and stakeholder consultation.
• Phase 3: Approvals, publication and knowledge sharing
  • Webinar covering the project outputs from Phase 1 and Phase 2.
  • Project data with populated metadata spreadsheet

Closing date: Wednesday 28 October 2026, 3 pm AEDT

View documents and forum.