Designing roads for large freight vehicles

The purpose of this project is to develop harmonised best practice road design requirements to provide for modern and emerging large freight vehicles, while ensuring safety and sustainability of networks and infrastructure.

The project is planned to be delivered in two stages:

1. Research (led by the Freight Task Force) to:

a. identify the needs of the modern freight task, and the roads that support them, with a focus on large freight vehicles – what type are used and where, now and projected, and the limitations of road design (geometry in particular) that need review

b. provide a cogent summary of the likely envelope and direction of the future development of the heavy vehicle fleet and therefore, the extent of road design standard modifications, and

c. produce recommendations for outcomes needed from road designs for Board consideration.

2. Handover and consequential review of the Austroads Guide to Road Design to deliver agreed recommendations (led by the Road Design Task Force).

Ultimately, new content would be included in the Austroads Guide to Road Design.

For this proposal, a ‘large vehicle’ is regarded as a vehicle longer than a standard semitrailer combination (19 m), such as a PBS vehicle, B-double or road train, or a High Productivity Motor Vehicle (NZ).

Proposed outputs: Guide or update to Guide, Research report

Consultants: WSP Australia Pty Limited

Program: Transport Network Operations [Freight ]

Status: Active