4.1
Meaningful reductions in fatal and serious injuries on Australian roads, and achieving Australia’s ambitious ‘Vision Zero’ targets, will only be possible if adequate resources are dedicated to road safety. Equally if not more important is ensuring resources are distributed according to need, risk, and potential impact, and ensuring funding recipients have financial certainty to plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate the effectiveness of initiatives. Funding decisions should also prioritise safety (incorporating Safe System principles), and be underpinned by clear, evidence-based policy.
4.2
During this and other inquiries into road safety, stakeholders indicated that while the Commonwealth has dedicated a significant amount of funding to road safety, more could be done to ensure that funding is targeted to areas of higher risk (including via more proactive funding approaches); to ensure alignment with the operational realities of funding recipients; and to ensure funding decisions prioritise safety improvements and ongoing evaluation of outcomes. This chapter considers funding for road safety initiatives and more ‘general’ road infrastructure projects. It covers the following matters:
Federal road safety investment programs and funding approaches.
Distribution of funding across metropolitan and regional areas.
Funding for local government.
Linking infrastructure funding to road safety improvements.
Linking funding to the provision of road safety data.
Linking funding to road safety star ratings, and the use of star ratings to improve accountability and awareness around road safety in Australia.
4.3
The chapter concludes with the committee’s views and recommendations.
4.4
While the focus of this chapter is the Commonwealth’s approach to funding and investment, it is acknowledged that measures in other chapters may also require targeted investment or re-evaluation of funding priorities.
Approaches to road safety funding
Road Safety Program: time-limited funding for road safety projects
4.5
As outlined in Chapter 1 of this report, the federal government committed a total of $3 billion from 2020–21 to 2022–23 to its Road Safety Program, which aims to reduce regional road crashes and protect vulnerable road users in urban areas. A key objective of the program is to reduce risk across the network and progressively address high-speed roads that lack critical safety features. The program is being rolled out in five tranches of six months each. As of September 2021, a total of 6,176 km of road safety improvement works had been funded under initial tranches of the Program.
4.6
Funded projects require a co-contribution from states and territories, and jurisdictions must use their funding within the six-month tranche to receive their full allocation for the next six months. Unspent funding is available for use by other jurisdictions that have fully utilised their allocation. States that receive funding are required to report against key metrics including traffic volumes; deaths; serious injuries; and the risk profile of the road network, measured by number of kilometres with road safety treatments in place. Reporting continues for the life of the National Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 (NRSS 2021–30), with data provided to the National Road Safety Data Hub.
4.7
Stakeholders generally supported the Road Safety Program and indicated that it should be continued over the life of the NRSS 2021–30. Some also called for additional funding for safety measures. For example, the International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) proposed that the federal government commit $3 billion per year to its road safety fund, noting that this is less than 10 per cent of the cost of road trauma.
4.8
Stakeholders also expressed their support for the Road Safety Program’s funding approach, including the requirement to ‘use or lose’ funding and the decision to make funding conditional on the provision of data on safety outcomes. Stakeholders noted that work under the Program demonstrates that jurisdictions have capacity to implement road safety initiatives and generate reliable data so long as adequate funding is available. Some stakeholders also indicated that a ‘use it or lose’ approach could be extended to all road safety projects and to infrastructure funding generally.
4.9
The Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (DITRDC) was uncertain on the benefits of extending the ‘use it or lose it’ approach to general infrastructure funding. In this regard, DITRDC stated that funded projects are typically completed on schedule, with a ‘record’ infrastructure spend in the period to 30 June 2021. However, DITRDC conceded that more might be done to push state and local road authorities to complete projects in shorter timeframes:
[The Commonwealth] does rely on…delivery partners to deliver the roads. We're not a builder ourselves; we're a funder. [If] things get stuck, obviously we need to push a bit harder. Certainly, on the Princes Highway that could have been expedited a little bit. But, across the broader program, if you look at things on a programmatic basis…[T]he spend and partnerships with the states have worked fairly well.
4.10
Stakeholders also called for a greater level of certainty around funding under the Road Safety Program (and other initiatives), with a focus on extending the time for which funding is made available. The Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (DTMR) said that there would be merit in providing longer-term (for example, 10-year) funding envelopes to enable certainty to recipients. DMTR further stated:
[U]sually it is one year of planning, a year of design and a year of delivery for, hopefully, a project that doesn't require a complex community consultation or resumption process…[A]nything less than three years has been in the past a challenge…[C]omplex projects take a different amount of time …Having longer windows works well. We have a targeted road safety program where most of that funding is allocated in a very annual cycle. The councils and the local government districts know the process, so they're working into a set schedule and open time frames.
4.11
The Tasmanian Department of State Growth (DSG) observed that greater funding certainty would be ‘very beneficial’ to assist with simpler, lower-cost infrastructure treatments on rural roads. DGS noted that it would support a five- or 10-year funding program, stating that this:
…would certainly be consistent with the approach of our action plan. Our action plan is a five-year action plan [which] was developed so that we could look at the road safety levy over that period, rather than over a shorter term. Any long-term certainty gives us the ability to plan into the future and to look at available road safety levy funding to lever off anything that's available from the Commonwealth.
4.12
Streets Alive Yarra (SAY) called for stable, recurring funding to enable local government investment in Safe System infrastructure, and to ensure that councils can commit staff to long-term projects and programs.
4.13
Stakeholders also noted that timeframes for projects funded under the Road Safety Program, combined with the ‘use it or lose it’ approach, create challenges in jurisdictions affected by weather extremes or supply chain issues. For example, the Northern Territory (NT) Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics (DIPL) stated:
[The NT] struggled significantly in tranche 1 [of the program], from several different angles. The six-month thing is a big issue, particularly with the wet season. We had an above average wet season during tranche 1, so we've only recently got big headway into some of those projects, which was a concern for us. The other thing is that, with COVID, the supply chain has been impacted as well, particularly steel, and integrated circuits.
4.14
Longer funding timeframes were also supported at the local government level, with stakeholders indicating that current timeframes can create issues with project and workforce planning.
4.15
The Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) noted that councils rely on contractors to augment internal workforces, and that engaging contractors can become difficult in relation to projects with strict time and funding constraints.
4.16
The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) similarly noted that long-term stability around funding cycles is critical for local government, stating:
[A] lot of local governments are working to 10-year planning windows as part of state legislation that sets up corporate planning, annual planning, and capital planning...[C]ompressed, competitive cycles can be quite problematic, and councils can spend a lot of money chasing workers or doing pre-work, and then they are left chasing funding, [either] from the Commonwealth or the states. [S]tability is critical to the work that we are trying to do.
4.17
Some stakeholders also indicated that larger projects are more challenging under a ‘use it or lose it’ approach.
4.18
For example, the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) noted that the Road Safety Program was designed to fund smaller projects with a focus on safety which can be implemented in a relatively short timeframe and for which progress monitoring can be easily undertaken. By contrast, larger projects can be difficult to track due to size and the approvals required to ensure a project is feasible. Consequently, a ‘use it or lose it’ approach with set time limits is challenging. However, the AAA acknowledged that large projects can be broken down into components—to which it may be possible to allocate funds on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis.
Black Spot Program: targeted funding for higher-risk areas
4.19
As outlined in Chapter 1, Black Spot Program funding targets dangerous locations with a proven history of crashes. Anyone can nominate a 'black spot' for funding consideration and candidate projects are first assessed by the relevant state road authority, which has details of the crash history of the site and the expertise to assess the appropriate treatment.
4.20
Up to 30 per cent of funding under the Black Spot Program is available for investment in proactive projects where there is an assessed risk that fatal or serious injury crashes are likely to occur. Additionally, proposals above the 30 per cent threshold may be considered for funding if recommended by the Black Spot Consultative Panel in the relevant state or territory. These panels are established in each jurisdiction to review project proposals.
4.21
While generally supportive of the Black Spot Program itself, stakeholders observed that the more reactive approach to funding under that and similar programs is less effective as fatal and serious injury events are becoming increasingly dispersed. Stakeholders called for a more proactive, risk-based approach to funding.
4.22
For example, the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) recommended that governments use iRAP star ratings to underpin a more proactive, risk-based approach to funding, stating:
A key advantage of road star ratings program like iRAP…is the rigour and integration of the model algorithms, the research that informs the risk assessment process, the rating methodology and the mechanism for applying it all provide a valid basis to compare roads across a network, and the results for comparing one network with another, nationally and internationally.
4.23
Expanding on this more ‘proactive’ approach to funding, ARRB told the committee that:
We are never going to reach Vision Zero if we're only going to invest funding where people have died and been seriously injured…I think we always need a black spot approach. We always need to have money available to invest where people are being killed and seriously injured, but increasingly we should be looking forward and trying to prevent them in the first place.
4.24
Austroads similarly noted that proactive investment is increasingly more cost effective than black spot funding, suggesting that the Commonwealth can play a leading role in fostering adoption of best practice road safety programs by state and local governments by funding infrastructure that will have the greatest lifetime benefit.
Allocation of funding: metropolitan vs regional areas
4.25
A particular issue for many stakeholders was that funds are often directed towards upgrades in urban areas rather than critical treatments on regional, rural, remote roads which may result in significant (and often less costly) reductions in fatal and serious injuries. Even in urban areas, funding is often targeted to congestion issues and traffic efficiencies rather than to ensuring safety for road users.
4.26
Engineers Australia (EA) emphasised that effective infrastructure funding ‘is not…about spending more money, [but] about changing where we’re spending it’, stating:
We would strongly like to see greater use of what you might term 'low cost' improvements on rural roads that have higher safety benefits…[In urban areas, we've [also] got a focus on projects to reduce congestion [such as] road widening and capacity upgrades. The fastest growing element of the crash toll in urban areas…is pedestrians and cyclists. They're now up to anywhere between one-quarter and one-third of fatalities in our larger cities, and we need to look at different things for them. There needs to be more attention on pedestrian crossings and protected bike lanes.
4.27
EA added that disproportionate allocations of funding to urban areas and ‘congestion busting’ does not make economic sense, as while congestion costs $16 billion each year, trauma costs $31 billion. Accordingly, EA called for more funds to be allocated to treatments on regional roads, noting that these have low costs relative to their safety benefits.
4.28
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) told the committee that more funding must be allocated to initiatives in rural and remote areas, and to initiatives to support road safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. It added that funding must be sustainable, and outcomes carefully monitored.
4.29
The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) observed that funding is often targeted to metropolitan areas—particularly to projects that aim to ‘bust’ congestion. This is notwithstanding higher rates of deaths and serious injuries on regional, rural, and remote roads. IPWEA also agreed there would be merit in reconsidering funding allocations with a focus on safety, stating:
The cost per kilometre [of addressing risks on the regional road network] would be less, but you would be able to do more…[W]e acknowledge the cost of [infrastructure] upgrades in urban areas, but we think that there needs to be an assessment of the value and the proportion of that funding or additional funding that's needed, and the benefits that can be derived from that.
4.30
Some stakeholders supported separating funding for road safety initiatives into categories, to ensure that no area is neglected. For example, EA stated:
We have a pot of money, but it's across everything. The danger of that, obviously, is that if it's not sufficient to do everything at once, …some areas don't progress. So even if it meant subdividing the money a little bit, I'd like to see a more programmed and systematic approach to a safety program funded in each [area].
Funding for local government
4.31
Closely linked to the allocation of funding to road safety in regional, rural, and remote areas is the need to ensure sufficient funding is available to local government. In this respect, it was noted that local governments rely on a mix of council revenue, financial assistance grants and state and federal funding more generally to maintain and improve their road networks.
4.32
Stakeholders raised concern that the funds available to local government are vastly disproportionate to the size of the road network for which local councils are responsible. For example, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) noted that local councils manage a third of Australia’s public infrastructure assets and the majority of the country’s road network with just 3.5 per cent of the nation’s tax revenue. Mismatches between asset responsibility and revenue were also highlighted in the 2018 Inquiry into the effectiveness of the National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020.
4.33
The Australasian Trauma Society (ATS) observed that local councils have limited access to the resources necessary to maintain roads to the standard recommended by the iRAP. According to ATS, federal and state government should devise ways to support local councils maintain the roads for which they are responsible.
4.34
IPWEA expressed concern that infrastructure investment is targeted primarily at state and national roads, noting that there is ‘still a big task’ to upgrade regional roads to a 3-star or better standard. Accordingly, IPWEA believed that resources should be dedicated to aligning investment to meet the needs of regional, rural, and remote communities. IPWEA indicated that building partnerships with local government to ensure that resources are invested effectively could be a function of the Office of Road Safety (ORS).
4.35
Some stakeholders supported untied funding for local government which would free councils to invest in local priorities. While acknowledging that financial assistance from the Commonwealth and states has been invaluable in enabling safety improvements at the local government level, stakeholders asserted that competitive grant processes can be unduly restrictive.
4.36
MAV noted that while Commonwealth and state funding is critical to ensuring local government is resourced to manage and maintain the road network, road safety outcomes are more likely to be achieved if councils have more autonomy. Accordingly, MAV called for measures that empower councils to manage the nuances of local roads, while arguing against time-limited grants and measures that do not provide certainty of funding.
4.37
MAV added that while there is room for the Commonwealth and other funding bodies to set expectations around how funding is used, this should not compromise councils’ ability to invest in opportunities that they have identified as critical. MAV also observed that there may be opportunities to reconsider how funds are allocated under federal financial assistance programs—with a view to allocating funds to states based on population, with funds then distributed by states to local council areas.
Local government spending decisions
4.38
An issue for some stakeholders was that local government decision-making (including decisions on spending infrastructure and road safety funds) does not have a sufficient safety focus. This is notwithstanding the general view that local councils must have a leading role in making decisions on how to spend road safety funding in local government areas (LGAs). Stakeholders indicated that the apparent lack of focus on safety may be driven by matters such as a lack of resources, failure of state or federal oversight, and a lack of capacity and expertise in local councils.
4.39
ARRB noted that local councils in rural and regional areas often spend funds according to demand rather than prioritising safety. According to ARRB, while public demand remains important, funding should be spent primarily on safety measures at intersections and on undivided high-speed roads where crash risk is highest. These and other areas of high crash risk should be identified via a comprehensive evaluation of the part of the road network under the local council’s control.
4.40
EA indicated that governments may not allocate sufficient funding for road maintenance. Accordingly, authorities—particularly in local government—can of necessity use funding nominally dedicated to safety improvements for maintenance activities that do not result in improvements to safety.
4.41
Similarly, WALGA noted that much of the funding allocated to local government is of necessity spent on road maintenance, with a much smaller proportion spent on expanding or improving the network. Local councils are often concerned with how to leverage existing expenditure to improve road safety. However, limited resources mean that councils may be obliged to choose between treatments (for example, resealing a section of road or resealing a shorter section of road but also improving the road shoulders).
4.42
By contrast to stakeholders calling for untied funding, the Pedestrian Council of Australia (PCA) indicated that funding allocated to local government requires better oversight and reporting, and potentially a means of rewarding good performance and punishing bad. The PCA stated:
[E]very year [in Britain], councils…have to present how well they've done on improving road safety…Wouldn't it be great if we [also] …gazetted or regulated councils so they did have to present something each year and show what they'd done, how they did it, how they reached that point?
4.43
EA indicated that oversight of local council spending decisions could be facilitated through statements of expectations for funding projects, closer monitoring and better evaluation of outcomes. By reference to the Roads to Recovery (RtR) program, EA stated:
[W]e should be incorporating a road safety statement in every road project, including Roads to Recovery, to describe what the safety outcomes of that project would be, but, most importantly, in terms of the number of people who are killed or seriously injured and the reductions in road trauma that would occur, not in dollar value but in people terms.
4.44
From the perspective of the federal government, ORS noted that there is by design a significant amount of untied funding available to local councils. In this respect, the Commonwealth’s aim is to ensure local councils understand the gaps in their networks such that they can build in safety treatments as part of their regular and annual maintenance:
[F]unding [is] available [via] the financial assistance grants scheme which is untied. There's also a local and community infrastructure fund that made significant funds available. I think it's now up to $2 billion that's available for councils to apply for projects to improve either their networks or their community facilities. What we want to get out there is a better understanding among councils as to what they need to do so that when funding opportunities come up, they have a plan. Then they can work out what their priority is and then use funds to commit to projects to improve safety.
4.45
DITRDC noted that while there has been no recent statement of expectations for the RtR program (or more broadly for infrastructure spending by local government), funding programs administered by the Commonwealth have a safety focus—even if safety is not their primary purpose. Moreover, administration of the RtR program includes an expectation that councils will report on how the funded project contributes to community safety.
4.46
Inquiry participants indicated that there is oversight of local council spending decisions at the state level. For example, the Victorian Department of Transport (VDT) noted that agencies such as the VDT work with local councils to deliver road upgrades and road safety initiatives and monitor and evaluate the outcomes. This is agreed up front.
4.47
The Victorian Transport Accident Commission (VTAC) observed that state road authorities require a business case prior to funding being provided and expect the case to be tied to safety outcomes. Moreover, state agencies such as the VTAC often work with local councils to build their capacity.
Infrastructure funding and safety outcomes
4.48
Several stakeholders highlighted that infrastructure funding is a key policy lever available to the Commonwealth to drive road safety improvements. Stakeholders called for safety to be embedded across infrastructure funding arrangements. This may require changes to law and policy to encourage if not mandate tied funding arrangements.
4.49
AAA indicated that while the $3 billion allocated to the Road Safety Program (around $1 billion per year) may be sufficient in terms of funding targeted road safety initiatives, what is still more important is ensuring that Commonwealth infrastructure funding generally has a road safety focus. AAA stated:
[In] the current budget, there is $25 billion…of federal funding for state and territory road infrastructure over the next 24 months. We would like to see the proportion of that money with strings attached increase year-on-year. We know we can't get to a stage immediately where all $12 billion of the Commonwealth is reset or reframed. The $3 billion Road Safety Program is a great start, and the secret is to increase the proportion of Commonwealth funding each year which has that strings-attached principle to it.
4.50
The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and National Road Transport Association (NatRoads) noted that the objects of the National Land Transport Act 2014 (NLTA) (legislative framework for Commonwealth infrastructure funding) do not specifically include safety. This means road safety may not be prioritised in infrastructure funding. ATA and NatRoads called for amendments to the NLTA to include safety as an object, and for the Commonwealth to provide that infrastructure funding should prioritise:
Project assessments which use a ‘willingness to pay’ approach in valuing the lives saved and injuries avoided from safety improvements.
Funding for projects aimed at minimising road safety risk.
Funding for initiatives that address infrastructure gaps identified under the National Service Level Standards Framework.
Adoption of Safe System principles for project design.
Upgrading unsafe rural and remote roads.
4.51
Some stakeholders indicated that funding decisions should capture matters such as public health and local amenity. For example, the Australasian College of Road Safety (ACRS) stated that the benefits of infrastructure should be considered in relation to community resilience, health, wellbeing, and amenity.
4.52
Others, however, cautioned against tying funding to specific safety measures. The Tasmanian Road Safety Advisory Committee viewed tying funding to the adoption of measures such as speed limits or the deployment of cameras as limiting access to funds needed for critical infrastructure upgrades.
4.53
A common theme in evidence before the committee was that infrastructure funding should be tied to the achievement of higher safety ratings for the relevant road, with stakeholders noting that there have been commitments at the national and state level to achieve higher ratings across the network.
4.54
In this regard, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) noted that a key action in the National Road Safety Action Plan 2018–2020 was improving star ratings across the road network, with the aim of achieving 3-star ratings or better for 80 per cent of travel on state roads and for 90 per cent of travel on national highways. The RACS called for this to be prioritised, citing upgrades to the Bruce Highway as an example of what can be achieved:
The Cooroy to Curra section of Queensland’s Bruce Highway used to be one of the deadliest stretches in the country. It is now one of the safest, moving from a 2-star safety rating to 4- and 5-star following state and [federal] government funded upgrades…The project has delivered both safety and efficiency outcomes: the speed limit has been raised to 110km an hour and an 82 per cent reduction in fatal and serious injuries was achieved in the three years after opening when compared to the Old Bruce Highway before 2010.
4.55
iRAP called for star rating performance targets to be applied to all new and upgraded road and transport infrastructure using federal funding. iRAP indicated that appropriate ratings include 4-star or better for National Highways, and 4-star or better for pedestrians and cyclists around public transport hubs, schools, and town centres. Currently, there is no obligation for funding applicants to tender based on achieving higher star ratings. Moreover, governments do not demand achievement of higher star ratings in funding arrangements. Accordingly, iRAP advocated for funding tied to star ratings to be mandated on a national basis, stating that:
Your buckets [of funding] are there, but they're not incentivised for road safety performance. We're not competitively tendering to see who can deliver a five-star road rather than a three star. We're not demanding it in our specifications for every national government project that rolls out the door, plus the point-to-point speed cameras that you talked about…[T]he mechanisms are there, we just need to refine them…The Office of Road Safety and the reforms that have already been brought in are key enablers of that.
4.56
The ATS stated that funding should be tied to achievement of higher star ratings, as well as to implementation of speed management measures (such as the deployment of point-to-point cameras) and installation of safety features such as dividing barriers, shoulder widening and sealing treatments, and audible edge-line treatments.
4.57
However, other stakeholders observed that requiring funding recipients to achieve specific star ratings may be challenging for local governments, who often lack the resources to make significant upgrades to the vast distances of road for which they are responsible. WALGA noted that while local councils could build toward specific star ratings (and regularly report on progress in relation to this goal) this would be challenging, stating that:
[Councils may] struggle, depending on…the diversity of local governments, their capacity…and current road standard[s]. The standard that might be expected might be so high that every single cent of their funding would be spent on only a few kilometres each year rather than a lot of kilometres.
4.58
WALGA added that building towards specific safety ratings requires an understanding of the current safety standard of the network, emphasising that this will be critical to ensuring targets are reasonable and meaningful.
4.59
Difficulties associated with achieving specific star ratings were also raised by state and territory governments. In this regard, DIPL stated:
To get a five-star rating you pretty much need—and I'll give you an East Coast example—a Pacific Highway, dual carriageway separated road to get five stars. There's no way here. The Stuart Highway is our main network, or the Victoria Highway. We're lucky to get 500 vehicles a day on some of those roads, so justifying billions and billions of dollars of infrastructure for that is difficult to comprehend, I guess—that that's what they want us to do.
4.60
Rather than focus entirely on star ratings, DIPL observed, it may be more suitable for jurisdictions with remote areas and longer sections of unsealed roads to adopt a fit-for-purpose standard which supports real reductions in road trauma.
Funding and road safety data
4.61
Stakeholders stressed that it is essential for the Commonwealth (and other funding providers) to understand how funding is used, whether a project has achieved measurable improvements in road safety, and what lessons can be learned from a project’s successes and failures. Accordingly, stakeholders called for funding to be tied to monitoring and evaluation of outcomes and provision of data. Stakeholders indicated that this should be a condition of funding allocated specifically to road safety (as is the case under the Road Safety Program) and funding for new and upgraded road infrastructure more generally.
4.62
ATA noted that a longstanding issue in infrastructure funding is a lack of focus on outcomes, and that funding recipients often provide little information on how money is spent or on the outcomes achieved.
4.63
ACRS similarly viewed linkages between funding and safety outcomes as ‘not at all transparent’, stating:
When the infrastructure star ratings are not published, there is no way that the community can see: 'This is the money that's gone to this road, and this is the benefit that it's had in terms of saving lives.' That needs to be made very, very clear for people, so we know that we're not just spending money improving bits and pieces of the road where it's easy to do so; we're actually targeting and spending the money where we're going to get the most bang for the buck and where we're going to make the most improvements.
4.64
AAA told the committee that the Commonwealth should impose data provisions and clear, transparent reporting obligations to funding for land transport infrastructure and road safety programs. It stressed that requiring the provision of safety star rating data as a condition of funding to a state is critical to improving road safety, stating:
We think that having that in the public domain and having people able to compare and contrast what different jurisdictions are achieving—and also you'd be able to scrutinise the relationship between where dollars are spent and [if]…improvements are actually happening, so you could see whether or not it's safety or political imperatives that are directing infrastructure spending—would be a big step up, and that's our main ask.
4.65
Transurban indicated that funding for road safety improvements should be subject to more rigorous monitoring and evaluation requirements, up to and including requiring that funding be measured against key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:
Proportion of speed limits appropriate for the road network.
Proportion of travel on roads rated three stars or better.
Proportion of network length rated three stars or better.
Rating and assessment of safe intersection design and implementation.
Establishment of measures to evaluate smart motorways and associated infrastructure and technology.
Proportion of separated networks for vulnerable road users including cyclists and pedestrians.
4.66
ORS noted that state and territory governments are required to report key data as a condition of receiving funding under the Road Safety Program. Elaborating on the data gathered and the purposes for which it will be used, ORS stated:
[G]enerally [data is] around crashes…we're looking at the predicted or past crash history of lengths of road that will be treated. This is obviously on the regional corridors. We're after the rating of the road—whether it is below three stars. Our aim with the funding is to get regional roads up to a minimum of three stars, so we're asking for a crash risk rating or predicted savings and a current status of road risk and the change after treatments have been applied. We're after fatal and serious injury numbers [and] crash risk on the road.
Publication of star ratings
4.67
Stakeholders asserted that star ratings should be published for all roads, as a way of enhancing accountability around road safety targets; permitting ongoing engagement with communities; and allowing the public to choose the safest route for their travel. This requires gathering information on the safety of roads across the network.
4.68
ACRS noted that there have been calls for the infrastructure star ratings of roads to be the subject of public reporting since the ratings were introduced in 2006, stating:
Safety star ratings provide an important opportunity to engage with the community on road safety...They are easily understood, easy to explain, and can be used to guide policy and decisions about infrastructure investments. Open data should be embraced to facilitate research and raise awareness. The community want to know about the safety of our roads, and to know that their taxes are making real improvements to the safety of those roads.
4.69
ACRS added that the publication of ratings (and other information about the safety of a road), would help drive improvements in the behaviour of road users and assist enforcement:
[A] culture of people understanding how safe [the] road network is…will drive employers making decisions about where people should be driving on the road to do their basic tasks. This isn't road transport; this is about real estate agents or salespeople or any groups that are using the road for their work. If I was a police commander, I would want to be following those things. If I was a roads authority, wouldn't I be saying to the police, 'Here is the road, here is the network, here are our problem parts. Could you concentrate your enforcement on those'? That's where we need the biggest support.
4.70
The Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR), University of Adelaide, also supported publication of star ratings for all Australian roads, noting that this has become standard in other jurisdictions. CASR stated:
[In Australia], we do not communicate with the public about the risk on the road network…If I am going to advise my wife or my children to go to summer holidays at a beach resort by the coast, there is no information to pass on to them around which route they should take or what route is more dangerous than another and so on. Basically, the community out there is operating with a lack of information on the performance of the road network as regards safety and risk, yet we do this for stars on cars, and we have a sense of what car is safer than another.
4.71
CASR further noted that while data to underpin star ratings exists, collecting and collating data to develop risk profiles for roads is an expensive exercise. A plan is needed to ensure smaller jurisdictions and local governments can conduct the necessary risk assessments.
4.72
SAY told the committee that an effective means of enhancing road safety would be to link all funding for state and local governments with a requirement to give each street which benefits from the funding a star rating:
[O]rdinary people…are familiar with star ratings, on their fridges or washing machines, and they know that five stars is better than three stars. If they can see their governments, whether that is local, state, or federal, investing in infrastructure that delivers a certain star rating, over time they start to believe that they should be getting that star rating, that it should be normal…Therefore, the voters can build up a relationship with their relevant governments to demand the change that they deserve.
4.73
iRAP observed that it is difficult if not impossible to determine exactly how road safety funding has been used. It proposed that ongoing risk mapping of the road network, including publication of road safety ratings, will support accountability by clarifying whether an agency has achieved measurable improvements in road safety over a specified period. iRAP also stated:
[A]very important part of the new data hub and the work that Austroads will do as part of their leadership of AusRAP is to bring awareness that it's going to be measured, and that you can't hide… Likewise, there's financing…road infrastructure, whether it's local government or the national highways. You need to bring that into the department's own and reporting regimes so that you know exactly [inaudible] taken of four- and five-star standards as a result of Roads to Recovery, national highway funding or the stimulus.
Improving travel safety via star ratings
4.74
Austroads expressed to the committee support for an application which would inform users as to the safest route based on star ratings (as opposed to existing GPS systems that provide the fastest route). It said there is commercial interest in such an application and that the Commonwealth should provide investment or leadership.
4.75
iRAP also supported the development of an application noting its potential application to the freight sector. iRAP noted that it and other organisations are considering development of an application and are working with government to ensure underpinning data is as current and as reliable as possible. There is, however, also pushback around a ‘safest route’-type application, iRAP cautioned—primarily concerns that if a crash occurs on a road designated ‘safe’ there may be substantial legal challenges.
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CASR similarly advocated for an application. However (as noted earlier), CASR’s view was that what is most needed is the development of a risk assessment map for the entire road network, as well as further conversations with the community around road use and permitted road infrastructure.
Funding and the National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030
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The NRSS 2021–30 recognises that enhancing safety across Australia’s road network—and achieving the ‘Vision Zero’ targets—will require resources to be dedicated to safety initiatives, with mechanisms to ensure funding is targeted to areas of higher risk. Notably, the NRSS 2021–30 states that over the life of the strategy there will be a significant increase in the total amount of infrastructure funding for targeted road safety improvements.
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The NRSS 2021–30 also recognises the key role played by local government in improving safety outcomes on Australia’s road network and supports measures to build the capacity of local councils and assist local governments to identify roads that should be prioritised for targeted investment.
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Finally, the NRSS 2021–30 recognises the disproportionate levels of trauma on regional, rural, and remote roads, and includes actions to improve the quality and safety of those roads through measures such as audio-tactile line markings, median treatments, and barrier treatments—underpinned by targeted funding.
Committee view
Funding under the Road Safety Program
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Evidence before the committee indicates that the $3 billion Road Safety Program has been instrumental in enabling funding recipients to make critical enhancements to safety across large portions of the network. Evidence also indicates support for the ‘use it or lose it’ approach to funding under the program, with stakeholders noting that the approach encourages funding recipients to complete projects quickly and efficiently.
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The committee considers that the Australian Government should continue the Road Safety Program over the life of the NRSS 2021-2030, as a means of ensuring funding is available for critical road safety initiatives. Noting the significant improvements in road safety that can be achieved with sufficient resources, and the disparity between the costs of road trauma and funding allocated specifically for safety improvements, the committee also considers that the Australian Government should increase the funding available under the Road Safety Program.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government continue the Road Safety Program over the life of the National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 and increase the funding available under that program.
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Evidence also indicates widespread support for the extension of funding timeframes under the Road Safety Program and other funding initiatives, with several stakeholders noting that 10-year funding envelopes would provide the certainty needed for effective project and workforce planning. Noting that improving road safety is an ongoing effort, and cognisant of the need to ensure state and local governments are fully supported to plan and carry out critical road safety improvements, the committee considers that the Commonwealth, working through the Office of Road Safety (ORS) and in full consultation with state and local governments, should investigate ways of providing longer-term, more sustainable funding for road safety projects.
Black spot funding
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Evidence indicates that while the Black Spot Program has delivered marked improvements to road safety, there is still a need to take a more proactive investment approach, with a focus on identifying areas of potential high crash risk (‘grey spots’) and taking preventative measures—as opposed to allocating funding based on historic fatal and serious injury crashes.
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The previous Joint Select Committee on Road Safety (previous committee) recommended that the Commonwealth review Black Spot Program funding conditions and site eligibility, to enable proactive detection and treatment of deficiencies in infrastructure. The previous committee also recommended that the Commonwealth increase funding to the Black Spot Program and increase the percentage of funding allocated to regional and remote areas.
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This committee endorses the recommendations of the previous committee and considers that they should be implemented. The committee does not consider it necessary to make further recommendations or suggestions relating to the Black Spot Program, other than to note that funding under that program (like other funding arrangements) should be sufficiently certain to enable proper workforce and project planning.
Allocation of funding
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A continuing concern for road safety stakeholders was that funding may not be allocated to areas of greatest need, and to areas where it will have the greatest impact. A particular concern was that disproportionate amounts of funding are directed to ‘congestion busting’-type works in major cities, notwithstanding higher rates of road trauma on regional, rural, and remote roads. The committee also heard that significant improvements to safety in regional areas can be achieved via the application of lower-cost treatments.
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Stakeholders also indicated that mechanisms for allocating funding should be reviewed to ensure sufficient, sustainable funding can be dedicated to specific types of improvements (for example, cycling infrastructure or road upgrades in regional, rural, and remote areas). Evidence indicates that this may involve separating funding by category, with deviations from funding categories only permitted with clear justification.
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Evidence before the previous committee also similarly indicated that more funding should be dedicated to safety on regional and remote roads. The previous committee recommended increases to black spot funding in those areas. While this committee supports the recommendations of the previous committee, it also considers that funding programs more generally should be reviewed with the aim of increasing the funding dedicated to enhancing safety in regional, rural, and remote areas—either by re-distributing current allocations or increasing the overall funding dedicated to road safety.
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As part of this work, consideration could be given to establishing additional funding categories for specific kinds of safety improvements. Moreover, any review be conducted in full consultation with state, territory and local governments, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and other road safety stakeholders, to ensure investment is targeted to areas of need.
Funding for local government
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Improving road safety in regional, rural, and remote areas will require that adequate funding be made available to local government, particularly as local government is responsible for the majority of Australia’s road network. The committee is concerned that the funding allocated to local government is insufficient given the size of the road network for which local government is responsible.
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As well as highlighting a need for additional funding for local government, stakeholders called for funding initiatives to be underpinned by genuine intergovernmental partnerships—to ensure that resources can be invested effectively and to enable councils to invest in local priorities. Partnerships should include measures to help build the capacity of local government (for example, by improving engineering and general road safety expertise), and to facilitate the sharing of data to enable evidence-based decision-making.
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The committee also heard that at least some funding should be provided to councils on the basis that the council will be the primary decision-maker in relation to how the funding is used. However, the committee is also cognisant that local government decision-making on spending may not always have a safety focus, variously due to resource constraints, a lack of road safety expertise, and potential gaps in state and federal oversight.
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The committee considers that the Commonwealth must continue to explore mechanisms to increase the funding available to local government. Efforts must also be made to ensure funding is targeted to areas of greatest need and projects with the greatest impact in terms of road safety outcomes, while maintaining councils’ ability to invest in local priorities—noting that in some cases job creation or local amenity will take precedence over safety. Efforts must also be made to ensure projects attracting Commonwealth and state funding are monitored and evaluated.
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The committee is pleased that supporting local government, including by enabling councils to prioritise infrastructure investment—is a key feature of the NRSS 2021–2030. However, the committee considers that more could be done to set clear expectations for how funding for local government will be used. This may include publication of an updated statement of expectations for funding initiatives such as the Roads to Recovery (RtR) Program, or by expressly tying funding to reporting on safety outcomes. The committee considers that reporting obligations under the Road Safety Program might be used as a model.
Infrastructure funding and safety performance
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The committee heard that that infrastructure funding is a key policy lever for the Commonwealth to drive safety improvements across the network, and that there are opportunities to increase the proportion of infrastructure funding tied to road safety measures and outcomes. The committee also heard that there would be merit in tying funding to achievement of safety star ratings.
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The committee generally supports measures to increase the proportion of funding that prioritises road safety and considers that embedding safety in funding arrangements must remain a priority for the Commonwealth going forward. In this regard, the committee is pleased that the NRSS 2021–30 will see a significant portion of infrastructure funding dedicated to targeted road safety improvements.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government work with state and territory governments to review and investigate ways of improving funding arrangements for infrastructure and road safety programs, with a focus on:
providing longer-term, sustainable funding to road safety projects to enable more effective project and workforce planning;
identifying priority areas for targeted investment, based on factors such as predicted crash risk;
increasing the amount of funding dedicated to safety improvements on and around regional, rural, and remote roads;
establishing categories of funding dedicated to specific types of road safety improvements, with a focus on safety for vulnerable road users;
allocating additional funding to local government, balancing autonomy for local government with oversight of road safety outcomes; and
prioritising safety for all road users without unduly limiting the funding available for critical infrastructure upgrades.
Funding and road safety data
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The committee heard it is critical for road safety and infrastructure funding to be tied to the provision of data on safety outcomes linked to the relevant project. This is to ensure that projects can be effectively evaluated and—if appropriate—selected for broader implementation, and to ensure that road authorities at all levels have access to reliable data to inform investment.
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Noting the success of the Road Safety Program in obtaining useful data on the safety outcomes of funded projects, the committee considers that all funding agreements for safety initiatives and infrastructure projects should include clear, transparent reporting obligations. Drawing on the Road Safety Program as a model, the committee considers that reporting should include matters such as traffic volume; deaths; serious injury; and the risk profile of the road. Data should be reported over the life of the project to enable an understanding of how a project contributes to improved safety outcomes.
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Noting that star ratings are widely understood as a measure of road safety, the committee considers that reporting should include the star rating of the road over the life of the project. This will also feed into mapping of the road network to inform accountability and targeted investment.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government make all funding for road safety and road infrastructure projects conditional on the provision of data on road safety outcomes. Where practicable, this should include provision of data on the star rating of the relevant road.
Publication and use of star ratings
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The committee is of the view that star ratings should be published for all roads as soon as they are made available. The committee considers that this is a crucial means of enhancing accountability around safety targets, enabling ongoing engagement with communities, and allowing members of the public to understand the safety of the road network.
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The committee is also of the view that the Commonwealth should explore opportunities to increase public access to safety ratings across the network, noting that some jurisdictions (particularly in Europe) already offer maps of the road network coded according to star ratings. The committee is also of the view that consideration should be given to developing a tool to enable members of the public to plan routes according to safety—noting that further research would be needed both to resolve technological issues associated with the development of such a tool and to avoid legal concerns associated with provision of advice on the ‘safest’ route for a journey.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government publish star ratings for all roads on an ongoing basis.
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The committee recommends that the Australian Government investigate the feasibility of developing a tool to allow road users to plan journeys according to safety, using star ratings as a basis.