CLOCS-A Guide

SAFELY SUPPLYING

CONSTRUCTION

FOLLOWING A $7.5 BILLION FEDERAL INJECTION FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS, THE AUSTRALIAN ROAD RESEARCH BOARD HAS RELEASED A NEW GUIDE TO IMPROVE CONSTRUCTION LOGISTICS SAFETY AROUND THE COMMUNITY. BASED ON A SUCCESSFUL MODEL FROM THE UK, IT IS HOPED TO SAVE AUSTRALIAN LIVES.

Road Safety Week in Australia takes place from 15 November to 22 November in 2020. It’s a week for commemoration of the 1200 people that died on Australian roads last year, but also a week to kick start change. This year the campaign is launching a pledge, for all drivers to commit to safer road practices.

The Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) plays a large role in releasing guidelines and best practice initiatives for safety concerning road use and construction.

This year ARRB has released the Construction Logistics and Community Safety – Australia (CLOCS-A) initiative which highlights good practice approaches to managing safety associated with a construction project’s on-road transportation and logistics.

With $7.5 billion committed to the country’s pipeline of infrastructure projects, we can expect to see many more trucks on Australia’s roads that are transporting key materials needed to underpin our infrastructure development.

The CLOCS-A guide is intended to reinforce safe practices for companies and drivers of these vehicles but also for the asset managers of the roads they are driving on.

In Victoria alone, 145 pedestrians and cyclists were killed or seriously injured in crashes involving a heavy vehicle between July 2013 and March 2019. Ninety-nine or 68 per cent of those fatal or serious injuries occurred in 30 to 60 kilometre per hour speed zones, which are typically located in metropolitan areas or city centres, often frequented by mixed-use traffic.

CLOCS-A was developed by ARRB in collaboration with the National Road Safety Partnership Program and was supported by grant funding from the NHVR’s Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative.

ARRB saw a gap in consistent safety advice relevant to the construction logistics sector which inspired the idea for the guide. Based on the United Kingdom’s successful CLOCS program, CLOCS-A will aim to reduce road trauma associated with construction logistics.

Stephanie Davy, Senior Professional, Transport Safety at ARRB, was instrumental in the creation of this guide. She says after engaging with industry she could see that each of the states in Australia operated differently, with varied approaches to community road safety issues relating to heavy vehicles.

“There just isn’t a lot of consistent advice out there and that is particularly challenging for heavy vehicle operators that work across borders. This is something that had been identified by some projects which had drivers needing to meet different

In the UK one city council that adopted CLOCS say a 47 per cent reduction in fatal and serious injuries involving heavy vehicles within two years.

requirements when working on projects between Melbourne and Sydney,” Davy says.

The guide was developed with input from a broad range of stakeholders including infrastructure authorities and industry partners involved in major construction projects.

“For example, Sydney Metro and Rail Projects Victoria embedded elements of the CLOCS-A program into their projects and we’ve engaged broadly to ensure that the guide is all encompassing and relevant to Australia,” Davy says.

She hopes that through continued engagement with industry, organisations will start to come forward to engage with ARRB about how they could embed the guide into their infrastructure projects.

Primarily an engineering and policy document, the guide is based on the Safe System approach to improving road operation. It aims to go beyond legal minimums in Australia’s efforts to improve the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists around trucks.

“The Safe System approach is the overarching principle that we look at in transport safety and its really all about shared responsibility and risk management, covering safe people, infrastructure, speed and vehicles,” Davy says.

“Those are the four main areas, and the idea is that if you can improve safety for each of those components you will achieve better outcomes.”

Four ultimate objectives make up the CLOCS- A guide, these are; to eliminate collisions between heavy vehicles and the community, improve efficiencies through fewer vehicle journeys, establish a national standard for industry to meet and to reduce operational risk.

“It’s got a detailed section looking at safer trucks and technologies companies can use to increase safety. There are suggestions such as looking for safe roads and planning low risk routes for the trucks. We also touch on improving community awareness of the vehicles and projects in their area,” Davy says.

“A major component is about good practice of managing risks on projects, it’s really about asset owners understanding what they should consider when the work is being put out to tender. It aims to get safety initiatives embedded earlier in the process.”

The CLOCS standard developed by Transport for London in the United Kingdom is already well established and has been measured by the City of Camden to reduce fatal and serious injuries involving heavy vehicles and vulnerable road users by 47 per cent, within 2 years of implementation. The City of Camden incorporated CLOCS into its planning and procurement policies to produce these results.

“Everyone we have engaged with so far in Australia has shown support for the program. People are keen for something like this to come into practice,” Davy says.

“It’s been widely acknowledged that these safety initiatives are an important feature of delivering successful projects. With the program well established in the UK, we want to bring the same outcomes to Australia.”

Ideally ARRB hopes the guide will set a precedent for a single national standard on these measures to be adopted in Australia. At this stage however, ARRB are looking to engage further with industry to develop the guide.

“The ultimate aim would be to see this embedded as a standard. We’re aiming to go beyond legal minimums in what we are trying to achieve. We see a national standard as one of the best ways to achieve that and have consistent guidance across all infrastructure projects,” Davy says. A new website for the guide has been launched at www.clocs-a.com.au. The guide and other information will be available here and industry is invited to connect with ARRB through the website or via enquiry@clocs-a.com.au, to get this guide incorporated into more projects.

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