Current opportunities
Purpose
The purpose of this project is to map out how the transformation to Safe System End States is reflected in the guidance, policy settings, assumptions, cultural norms, processes and practices that shape road infrastructure planning, project pipeline development, design, traffic engineering, delivery, operation and maintenance across Australia and New Zealand. The project will consider Austroads guidance, jurisdictional supplements, member policies, and how guidance is interpreted, applied, or adapted in practice.
The objective is to strengthen alignment between Safe System principles, Charting a Path to Zero, jurisdiction-defined Safe System End States, and the practical decisions that shape road infrastructure and traffic engineering outcomes. This includes identifying opportunities to strengthen Safe System application, understanding where traditional planning and design assumptions continue to influence future road corridor upgrades, and clarifying where genuine trade-offs require transparent consideration.
While the project originated from concern about the application of Safe System in road design guidance, it recognises that many road network functions, operating assumptions and design outcomes are set well before detailed design. Strategic network planning, corridor planning, business case development, investment prioritisation and project pipeline planning can establish preferred options that may remain on the shelf for many years before investment occurs. These early decisions, together with commercial, professional, organisational and cultural settings, can strongly shape whether future projects are capable of delivering Safe System outcomes.
Scope
The scope of the project is to review the following, and identify where current guidance, policies, practices and decision pathways could be strengthened to align road infrastructure planning, project pipeline development, design and traffic engineering outcomes with Safe System principles and the Planning for Zero Framework, leading to a system that is designed to avoid death and serious injury:
- Austroads guidance and tools that influence road infrastructure planning, design, traffic engineering and road safety outcomes, including Austroads’ Guide to Road Design, Guide to Traffic Management, Guide to Road Safety, jurisdictional supplements and notes, Road Safety Audit, Safe System Assessment and related assessment, assurance and decision-support tools used for road infrastructure planning, design, traffic engineering or Safe System outcomes.
- Each jurisdiction’s road infrastructure lifecycle: assumptions, policies, practices and decision pathways that shape strategic network planning, corridor planning, project pipeline development, business case development, concept design, design, traffic engineering, delivery, operation and maintenance.
- The cultural, organisational and risk settings that influence how road design guidance is interpreted and applied, including where professional norms, perceived liability concerns, design exception processes, funding criteria or established practice may reinforce traditional design choices rather than Safe System outcomes.
This will support more consistent application of Safe System principles across jurisdictions and road contexts, taking into account jurisdiction-specific Safe System End States. This is done by identifying how Safe System principles are integrated within the full road infrastructure planning lifecycle, from strategic network planning and pipeline development through to operation and maintenance, including where objectives reinforce one another, where trade-offs arise, and how those trade-offs should be addressed transparently. Any recommendations arising from this work should recognise the diverse contexts in which transport decisions are made.
The project will produce a Technical Report, an Internal Report, and a Webinar. Primary users include Austroads task forces, guide custodians and technical reference groups, with downstream use by practitioners, consultants, road planners, designers, traffic engineers, project delivery teams, road operators, road maintainers, auditors and Safe System Assessment users.
Deliverables
The project will produce the following deliverables:
- Technical Report or Research Report summarising findings, gap analysis, member practice, consultation findings (one or more reports, structured by workstream or consolidated as agreed with Austroads).
- Internal report includes recommendations for Austroads guide custodians on changes to guidance and tools, support for practitioners to adapt revised guidance, and change management requirements. Appendices include the guide-ready text updates where required (an internal report or consolidated internal advice, structured by workstream as agreed with Austroads).
- Webinar to support dissemination and adoption (one or more webinars or dissemination products, as agreed with Austroads).
Closing date: Monday 12 October 2026, 5 pm AEDT
Purpose
Austroads seeks responses from appropriately experienced service providers to deliver the 2027 National
Walking and Cycling Participation Survey.
Objective
The objectives of this survey are to:
- Track trends in walking, cycling and micromobility participation, frequency, and purpose.
- Support monitoring and evaluation of active transport policies, programs and infrastructure
investment. - Inform active transport strategies and mode share targets.
- Support business cases and prioritisation of infrastructure investment.
- Monitor participation, perceptions of safety and equity-related differences, where these matters
are included in the agreed questionnaire. - Ensure the survey continues to provide robust participation estimates for key demographic
groups, including children and young people. - Improve understanding of participation among people with disability, including use of walking,
cycling and micromobility options where sample sizes permit meaningful analysis.
The expected users of the survey outputs will be national, state, and local government transport and
health agencies, advocacy and community groups, researchers and policy analysts, general public and
media
Deliverables
This project will produce the following deliverables:
- Project Management Plan, including:
- project schedule and milestone plan;
- risk management approach;
- quality management approach;
- stakeholder engagement plan; and
- Data Management Plan.
- Survey Design and Delivery Plan, including:
- proposed sampling framework;
- data-collection methodology;
- recruitment approach;
- questionnaire design;
- weighting approach;
- quality-assurance procedures;
- analytical framework; and
- reporting approach.
- Final questionnaire and questionnaire change log, documenting changes from the 2025
questionnaire and the implications for longitudinal comparison. - Programmed and tested survey instrument, including testing results and evidence that identified
issues have been addressed. - Fieldwork reports, including progress reports, response monitoring and a final fieldwork
completion report. - Final survey data package, including:
- cleaned, validated and weighted unit-record dataset;
- unweighted dataset, where appropriate;
- data dictionary or codebook describing every variable, response code, derived measure,
missing-value convention and applicable survey question; - weighting documentation;
- quality-assurance record; and
- populated metadata template.
- Draft and final technical reports, including:
- survey methodology and sampling approach;
- data-collection outcomes and response profile;
- national and agreed jurisdictional results;
- analysis of walking, cycling, e-bike and e-rideable participation;
- trend comparison with previous survey waves;
- implications of methodological and questionnaire changes; and
- findings, conclusions and recommendations.
- Core national, state and territory tables and reporting outputs agreed with Austroads.
- Accessible tables, figures and public-use data outputs.
- Presentation of findings to the Public and Active Transport Task Force and Project Control
Group. - Public webinar, including presentation materials and recording.
- Final data and knowledge-transfer package.
Closing date: Friday 16 October 2026, 3 pm AEDT
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:
- What priority data is needed to understand and monitor fauna impacts across the road network?
- What priority data is needed to plan, prioritise and evaluate fauna impact mitigation measures?
- What are the most practical and cost-effective ways to support agencies to consistently collect, acquire and manage this data?
- 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
