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.
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
- AusRap Report - How Safe Are Our Roads? Rating Queensland's Highway Network For Risk - National Highway Risk Mapping (2016)
- AusRAP - Star Rating Australia’s National Network of Highways (2013)
- AusRAP Star Rating 2013 – Peak Downs Highway
- AusRAP Report - How Safe Are Our Roads? Rating Australia's National Network for Risk - Benchmarking the performance of Australia's roads in the Decade of Action (June 2012)
- AusRAP Report - How Safe Are Our Roads? Rating Australia's National Network for Risk - Benchmarking the performance of Australia's roads in the Decade of Action (January 2012)
- How Safe Are Queensland's Roads? Rating Queensland Highways for Risk
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.
- 2021 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Gore, Barwon, Carnarvon, Dawson, Gregory Highways and Gregory Developmental Road
- 2016 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Flinders, Barkly and Landsborough Highways and Kennedy Development Road
- 2014 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Brisbane to Cairns along the D’Aguilar, Burnett, Leichhardt, Capricorn, Gregory and Kennedy highways and Gregory and Kennedy Developmental roads
- 2013 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Warrego, Landsborough and Barkly Highways from Ipswich to Mount Isa
- 2012 RACQ Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Darling Downs including Cunningham Highway, New England Highway, Leichhardt Highway and Gore Highway
- June 2012 RACQ Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Bruce Highway, Cairns to Caboolture
- 2011 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Major highways in South West and Central Queensland & the Bruce Highway
- 2010 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Major highways in Central / North Eastern / South Eastern Queensland & Wide Bay / Burnett District
- 2009 Regional Road Inspection Tour Report – Major highways in North, Central and Southern Queensland