Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100205
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Optimisation of transit priority in a transportation network. This project is aimed at developing an optimised approach to combine various types of public transport priority in an urban network which can be used by transport planners to increase the efficiency of traffic movements and reduce traffic congestion. The case study is the network of Brisbane including all arterial and local roads.
A novel integrated motorway management system for less congested, more reliable and safer motorways. Motorway traffic congestion poses major economic, social and safety problems, which this project seeks to address through intelligent traffic management solutions as an alternative to massive infrastructure expansion. The project’s innovative traffic analysis and control system will reduce periods of congestion and increase driver safety.
Innovative urban traffic congestion solutions: optimising road space using networks of multi-class priority lanes. This project strengthens national approaches to a pervasive Australian problem; growing traffic congestion deteriorating liveability, environmental health and economic performance of the cities. This project improves approaches for traffic priority design to improve the efficiency of several class of vehicles and therefore, reducing traffic congestion.
Assessing the full impacts of high efficiency heavy vehicles in urban traffic networks using new analytical tools. Significant economic benefits result from new innovative heavy vehicles, which are able to carry up to twice the payload of standard semi-trailers. In addition, those vehicles have the potential to reduce overall accidents and evironmental degradation. Those benefits need to be traded-off against the impacts on other road users. This research will improve the operation of such ve ....Assessing the full impacts of high efficiency heavy vehicles in urban traffic networks using new analytical tools. Significant economic benefits result from new innovative heavy vehicles, which are able to carry up to twice the payload of standard semi-trailers. In addition, those vehicles have the potential to reduce overall accidents and evironmental degradation. Those benefits need to be traded-off against the impacts on other road users. This research will improve the operation of such vehicles in regional centres by producing: (1) an assessment methodology to deal with options for network efficiency gains which will capture the full impacts; and (2) a computer modelling tool based on fundamental research to quantify those impacts, in terms of delays and accident rates.Read moreRead less
Multidimensional evaluation of the overall benefits of voluntary travel behaviour change programs. Voluntary Travel Behaviour Programs (VTBC) offer considerable promise for the management of traffic congestion and reduction in greenhouse gas and air quality emissions from road transport. Research to date has identified two outstanding issues: (1) measurement and evaluation of actual behaviour change and (2) identification of the full benefits and impacts of VTBC. Empirical studies indicate that ....Multidimensional evaluation of the overall benefits of voluntary travel behaviour change programs. Voluntary Travel Behaviour Programs (VTBC) offer considerable promise for the management of traffic congestion and reduction in greenhouse gas and air quality emissions from road transport. Research to date has identified two outstanding issues: (1) measurement and evaluation of actual behaviour change and (2) identification of the full benefits and impacts of VTBC. Empirical studies indicate that many of the benefits fall outside the transport area, including a wide range of socio-economic benefits to individuals and the community. This project will develop a survey tool for assessing benefits and impacts of VTBC within a properly designed and tested evaluation framework.Read moreRead less
Motorway management system integrating safety, efficiency & sustainability. This project aims to develop a motorway management system that holistically optimises motorway safety, efficiency, and sustainability via intervening the traffic flow dynamics. In the current practice of motorway traffic flow management, safety, efficiency, and sustainability are fundamentally connected but separately managed as they are modeled by distinct methodologies. The new system is based on a proposed traffic flo ....Motorway management system integrating safety, efficiency & sustainability. This project aims to develop a motorway management system that holistically optimises motorway safety, efficiency, and sustainability via intervening the traffic flow dynamics. In the current practice of motorway traffic flow management, safety, efficiency, and sustainability are fundamentally connected but separately managed as they are modeled by distinct methodologies. The new system is based on a proposed traffic flow theory which includes a microscopic model for safety analysis and a derived macroscopic model for efficiency and sustainability analysis. This theory can be used to resolve the above-mentioned long unsettled challenge and significantly improve our motorway performance.Read moreRead less
Traffic microsimulation of ITS implementations in CBD road networks. This research project will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) technologies in an Australian Central Business District (CBD) environment. It is often assumed that road networks and especially high activity areas such as CBDs can benefit significantly from ITS implementations. Traditionally ITS impacts have been difficult to quantify due to difficulties in isolating network ....Traffic microsimulation of ITS implementations in CBD road networks. This research project will investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) technologies in an Australian Central Business District (CBD) environment. It is often assumed that road networks and especially high activity areas such as CBDs can benefit significantly from ITS implementations. Traditionally ITS impacts have been difficult to quantify due to difficulties in isolating network effects and limitations with traditional traffic models. The project will overcome this difficulty by using a current state of the art traffic microsimulation model in order to test various ITS scenarios in a duplicate of a real world CBD.Read moreRead less
Containment and Reduction of Rework in Transport Mega Projects. Mega transport projects (>$1 billion) are poorly managed during their construction with significant cost and schedule overruns and benefit shortfalls regularly being experienced. Having to perform rework has been identified as a major factor that contributes to these unintended consequences. As there has been limited research that has empirically examined rework causation, an inability to develop effective rework containment and red ....Containment and Reduction of Rework in Transport Mega Projects. Mega transport projects (>$1 billion) are poorly managed during their construction with significant cost and schedule overruns and benefit shortfalls regularly being experienced. Having to perform rework has been identified as a major factor that contributes to these unintended consequences. As there has been limited research that has empirically examined rework causation, an inability to develop effective rework containment and reduction strategies prevails. This research aims to develop a theoretical model that can be used to develop robust containment and reduction strategies to mitigate the adverse economic, productivity and safety consequences that materialize from performing rework during the construction of mega transport projects.Read moreRead less
Behavioural responses to transport congestion: peak spreading and the more efficient usage of transport infrastructure. Transport networks in cities such as Sydney are at or near capacity. It is no longer socially, environmentally or financially sustainable to continue supplying additional transport infrastructure to meet increased demand. An alternative is to make better use of existing infrastructure by spreading demand more evenly across the day. This project will test behavioural responses t ....Behavioural responses to transport congestion: peak spreading and the more efficient usage of transport infrastructure. Transport networks in cities such as Sydney are at or near capacity. It is no longer socially, environmentally or financially sustainable to continue supplying additional transport infrastructure to meet increased demand. An alternative is to make better use of existing infrastructure by spreading demand more evenly across the day. This project will test behavioural responses to increased congestion and quantify the phenomenon of peak spreading. It will assess economic costs and benefits of using congestion as a signal to encourage more efficient network usage, and examine other tools (e.g. time-based transport pricing) to encourage more efficient use of transport infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Proactive detection of motor vehicle crash black spots based on their underlying behavioural, engineering, and spatially related causes. Road traffic crashes are responsible for about 1400 fatalities and 32,500 injuries on Australian roadways each year. A significant research opportunity exists to fundamentally rethink how the profession quantitatively identifies black spots on the transport network. The first project aim is to develop, test, and validate an evidence based methodology to proacti ....Proactive detection of motor vehicle crash black spots based on their underlying behavioural, engineering, and spatially related causes. Road traffic crashes are responsible for about 1400 fatalities and 32,500 injuries on Australian roadways each year. A significant research opportunity exists to fundamentally rethink how the profession quantitatively identifies black spots on the transport network. The first project aim is to develop, test, and validate an evidence based methodology to proactively detect motor vehicle crash black spots. The second aim is decompose (statistically) observed crashes at a site into their engineering, behavioural, and unobserved spatial components. The new methods combined will lead to fundamentally novel insights and knowledge regarding transport network safety management, in turn leading to reductions in the Australian road toll.Read moreRead less