Funding Puts Road And Shared Path Safety On Track
Researchers from The University of Western Australia have received Federal Government funding to enhance the safety of shared paths for cycling, eRideables and pedestrians and to assess the impact of visual field loss on motor vehicle crashes.
The Planning and Transport Research Centre was awarded more than $900,000 from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
Dr Chao Sun, from The Planning and Transport Research Centre, is leading the project Safe Paths: Enhancing Active Transport Infrastructure Through Video Analytics and Community Reporting.
The study aims to enhance the safety of shared paths for active transport modes like cycling, eRideables and pedestrians, through a combination of video analytics and community-sourced incident data.
“We will use UWA’s cutting-edge RoadSense Video Analytics software to collect videos and analyse observational data of user behaviours, movement patterns and potential conflict hotspots,” Dr Sun said.
“The data will be complemented by a crowdsourced incident reporting web portal that is mobile phone friendly, to increase the ease of reporting for users.
“A portal will include a searchable database to curate both video-derived and community-reported incident and near-miss data, addressing the underreporting challenge and assist further research.”
The project aims to provide a framework for ongoing safety data collection, report on identified issues and baseline “before” conditions, and improve design guidelines for safer and more inclusive shared paths.
A Population-Based Study Assessing the Impact of Visual Field Loss on Motor Vehicle Crashes is led by Professor Lynn Meuleners, from the Western Australian Centre for Road Safety Research, Professor Doina Olaru from the Business School and Dr Siobhan Manners from the School of Population and Global Health.
“Globally, the older population is rapidly increasing, which has implications for road safety, particularly as most older adults continue to drive for convenience,” Professor Meuleners said.
“Visual fields play a crucial role in safe driving, as loss can affect the detection of objects in the periphery, judging distance and speed, maintaining lane position in a curve and anticipatory skills while driving.
“Current visual standards for driving are based on visual acuity and visual fields however, these standards lack robust scientific evidence on the link between visual field loss, driving ability and crash risk.”
The project aims to undertake an innovative population-based study using a large-scale specialised ophthalmic database of visual fields tests comprising 606,230 records from 92,215 participants.
“This data will enable us to determine precise estimates of crash risk and explore links between the severity and location of visual field loss that could be used to inform road safety and licensing authorities on fitness to drive in WA, Australia and worldwide,” Professor Meuleners said.
The Planning and Transport Research Centre is a collaboration of leading experts and researchers from UWA, Curtin University, the Department of Transport, Main Roads Western Australia, the WA Planning Commission and the WA Local Government Association.
https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2025/april/funding-puts-road-and-shared-path-safety-on-track