Innovations to Monitor National & Local Roads

MetroCount’s Vern Bastian and Dale Luelf boosted this year’s National Local Roads and Transport Congress by sharing their wealth of knowledge on traffic monitoring Australia-wide.
The conference covered presentations on heavy vehicle regulation, road funding and especially road safety.
Headway is being made to update the AustRoads 1994 Vehicle Classification Scheme to differentiate vulnerable road users (such as bikes and motorcycles) from cars. This will allow local councils to better understand rider behaviour and identify potential road safety hazards.

The conference theme of ‘breaking through for modern transport’ emphasised the future of transport and how local governments can benefit.
As always, there was a lot of interest in MetroCount’s portable traffic data collection solutions and how to best use MTE software to more effectively gain insights into road use.
Photos from NLR&T Congress
Innovations to Monitor National & Local Roads
Following the conference, MetroCount hosted a showcase day to introduce new innovative solutions to clients from local government, parks and state road authorities. These included:
- the ability to now differentiate e-scooters, cargo bikes and pedestrians from kids’ or adult bikes in cycle surveys;
- gathering unique data sets for each lane of traffic on short-terms surveys of multiple lane roads;
- technology to remotely access survey sites for data download and to check sensors from the office (or anywhere);
- online training webinars to more accurately and efficient install surveys, quality check and analyse data;
- and a sneak peek of our online traffic analytics platform currently under development.
Vern also shared valuable knowledge on how to use MTE software to detect potential road hazards and improve road safety. His presentation covered five key areas including:
- Identifying dangerous lane departure, tailgating and overtaking hot spots.
- Predicting the location and subsequent impact of crashes.
- Identifying vulnerable road users and their activity (motorbikes, bicycles, scooters and pedestrians).
- Understanding driver behaviour at traffic lights through red and orange light violations and approach speed, traffic headway and vehicle class data.
- Identifying growth and seasonal variations in heavy vehicle movements as well as highlight illegal use of smaller roads
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