The report was released by Austroads online in early May. It is one of the first initiatives to investigate the impacts of AV on the management of local road networks.

Scott Benjamin, Technical Director for Intelligent Transport Systems at WSP spoke about how the firm has worked collaboratively to develop these guidelines for the roll out of AV in a way that supports sustainable and resilient cities.

“If we want to thrive in the cities of the future, the private and public sector needs to work together to maintain the overall legislative framework for AV technologies in order to ensure Australia and New Zealand prepares its infrastructure for a future with AV’s.  In developing this report, we’ve leveraged some of the best practice and guidelines developed by WSP’s team internationally, and combined this with the knowledge of Austroads and our local team. We have created a document that captures the key issues and challenges in three broad categories: physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure and road operations.”

“This is another key step towards readiness for AV deployment, providing high level guidance which will continue to evolve as the local transport landscape does.”

Austroads ‎Program Director Connected and Automated Vehicles, Stuart Ballingall said, “This project has reviewed both international and local literature and initiatives, and sought input of key stakeholders on emerging requirements for AVs to operate on public and private road networks in urban and rural environments.”

The ‘Assessment of Key Road Operator Actions to Support Automated Vehicles’ report can be accessed here.