RACQ lobbies for a mass action Queensland road safety program to achieve a minimum 30% reduction in fatal and serious injuries by 2030.

Australian Road Assessment Program

Since the inception of AusRAP, the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), the peak body for Australia’s motoring clubs, including RACQ, has run the AusRAP program. Austroads has now taken over the administration of AusRAP, however the Clubs will continue to utilise AusRAP and advocate for its use by state and territory road authorities as a tool to objectively quantify the safety of road infrastructure. AusRAP uses two methods of assessment:

  • Star rating maps based on levels of safety built into the road’s design, which can influence the likelihood of a crash occurring and its severity.
  • Risk mapping based on a road’s history of casualty crashes, Fatal and Serious Injury (FSI) crashes and traffic volumes.

RACQ advocates for a target in Queensland of achieving 95% of travel on the national network, and 90% of travel on the state network, at AusRAP 3-star or better by the end of 2024. Local Roads of Regional Significance should aim for >80% of travel AusRAP 3-star or better by the end of 2024.

Star Rating

Like the successful European Road Assessment Program (EuroRAP), AusRAP represents a valuable tool to explain how roads can change from being safe to unsafe along their length. It also assists road authorities in identifying and prioritising road upgrades.

Risk Mapping

The Collective, Individual and Combined Risk maps assess generally high speed sections of the highway network with speed limits of 80 km/h or higher (i.e., crashes are excluded through major townships with lower speeds) - although where there are small towns with lower speed limit located within a single section, these have typically been included.

> View previous Star rating and Risk map (2015-19)

Use the interactive map to see the AusRAP risk ratings for Queensland roads. The map can be set to combined/collective/individual risk, star rating for vehicle occupants (smoothed), fatal and hospitalisation crashes (state roads with 80km/h+ speed limits) and annual average casualty crash cost per km.

> Download latest Risk Mapping results (2016-20)

The latest risk mapping results show the Top 83 State Government road sections where low-cost high-benefit upgrades could be most effective and economical to deliver the largest Fatal and Serious (FSI) crash reductions.

> Report a transport issue

What do the risk types mean?

Collective risk shows the density, or total number, of casualty crashes over a given length of road. Collective risk is calculated by dividing the number of casualty crashes per annum by the length of highway.

Individual risk shows the casualty crash rates per vehicle kilometre travelled. This effectively represents the risk of being involved in a crash faced by an individual driver, by taking traffic volumes into account. Individual risk is calculated by dividing the frequency of crashes per annum by the distance travelled on each section of highway per annum.

Combined Risk

Both the collective risk and the individual risk reveal important aspects of the safety of a road section. These two risk types have been combined with equal weighting to produce a single risk score per road section (the combined risk score). Once a section of highway has received a combined risk score, it is assigned one of five corresponding colours from Low to High. The cut-off points between colours are determined by ranking sections from worst to least risk across the Queensland roads included in this assessment, calculating the total length of road assessed and then dividing this result into the five colour bandings, each representing as close as possible to 20 per cent of the network assessed. The ‘Combined Risk’ map layer provides clear targets for those roads requiring infrastructure upgrades: governments should focus on roads coloured in red and black as a priority, especially higher volume roads that also have an AusRAP 1 or 2-Star road infrastructure rating.

Star Rating for vehicle occupants (smoothed)

Star Ratings are based on the level of safety built into the road, i.e., how safe the road infrastructure is. Sections of road are rated on a scale of 1 to 5-stars, with 1-star being the least safe and 5-star being the safest. Safe roads with design elements such as dual-lane divided carriageways, good line marking and wide lanes have a higher star rating. Lower-rated roads are likely to have single-lanes and be undivided with poor line marking and hazards such as trees, poles and steep embankments close to the edge of the road.

The most recent AusRAP reports and maps can be viewed at the AusRAP website. Copies of previous reports are available below.

Past AusRAP Reports

Past Regional Road Inspection Tour Reports

RACQ undertakes regional road inspection tours to collect detailed safety and road quality observations and recommendations for selected major roads and highways in Queensland’s regions.

 

Things to note

The information in this article has been prepared for general information purposes only and is not intended as legal advice or specific advice to any particular person. Any advice contained in the document is general advice, not intended as legal advice or professional advice and does not take into account any person’s particular circumstances. Before acting on anything based on this advice you should consider its appropriateness to you, having regard to your objectives and needs.