Tender Advertisement #1264789

PURPOSE:
Develop a modernised method for implementing road design solutions which depart from the design dimensions/features normally considered to represent acceptable practice as documented in the Guide to Road Design. This is relevant when designing solutions in constrained environments or particular contexts that make it impractical or impossible to adopt such dimensions/features.

SCOPE:
A comprehensive update to the Design Domain concepts and Design Exceptions sections in the Guide to Road Design Part 1: Objective of Road Design. The update is to be based on the items listed under the Objectives (please see below) and also from workshops of experts, practitioners and stakeholders in road design, road safety and traffic management and lessons learnt from working parties of the road authorities including local government.

ISSUE AND RATIONALE:
It is often difficult to achieve preferred design criteria when constructing and reconstructing roads in intensively built urban areas, culturally or environmentally sensitive areas or areas of difficult terrain without unacceptable social consequences or prohibitively high costs. Examples include having to demolish historic or expensive buildings, damaging culturally or environmentally significant features, undertaking impractical and expensive earthmoving or expensive relocations of sensitive high risk public utilities.
The range of values for road design parameters in the Guide to Road Design, usually referred to as “desirable” or “minimum”, is known as the Normal Design Domain (NDD). For a limited number of parameters an additional range of values, known as the Extended Design Domain, provides designers with the opportunity to maintain safety levels when deviating from normal domain values in constrained circumstances. Any solution that does not fall within either the NDD or Extended Design Domain (EDD) is considered a Design Exception (DE) and requires additional analysis in terms of energy management and the levels of death and serious injury risk. By way of example, recent growth in demand for place making in urban settings challenges road designers to deviate from standard practice to meet place making objectives.
The procedures for implementing EDD and DE solutions vary between jurisdictions and can be poorly understood. Experience indicates that justifications of EDD and DE solutions focus on the constraints, prompting their adoption without adequately addressing the consequences for safety, performance of the road network and reputational risks.
The aim of the project is to develop a modernised method, endorsed across Austroads members, for implementing EDD and DE.This should be based on contemporary practices from Australia and New Zealand as well as international jurisdictions experienced in this field. This will clarify what is expected in proposing and justifying such departures and lead to greater confidence and consistency in their applications.
The rationale is summarised as follows.
• The practical difficulties of building roads in many scenarios, such as established urban areas, culturally or environmentally sensitive areas, or difficult terrain are acknowledged.
• A modernised method for departing from current recommended design dimensions/features to account for safety, social, environmental and economic imperatives will enable designers across all jurisdictions to build expertise in addressing the realities of design.
• An established and accepted modernised method will give greater confidence to planners and design practitioners and road authorities so they can exercise appropriate flexibility in design to achieve acceptable outcomes in an ethical and defensible way. This should help to moderate the variability between individuals and authorities when it comes to appetite for risk and thereby the occurrence of overly risky or overly conservative designs. It should encourage the uptake of responsibly innovative design practices in constrained environments.

DELIVERABLES:
This project will produce the following deliverables:
• Research Report
• Updated Guide to Road Design Part 1 and recommendations for updates to other parts of the Guide to Road Design, the Guide to Road Safety and the Guide to Traffic Management.
• Webinars
• Implementation Plan

Also included as part of this tender are the following documents:
• Instructions for Authors of Austroads Publications which sets out the writing and formatting standards for research, technical and internal reports.
• Master Services Agreement outlining our Terms and Conditions. Please note that our Terms and Conditions are not negotiable.

All submissions are to be submitted as a PDF at a maximum size of 10MB.

All submissions are to include a completed Tender Proposal Coversheet.

The naming convention for submissions is: [your Company name] – [Project No.] – [any internal reference numbers].