The purpose of Austroads Project AT1737 is to identify and define the asset management needs and level of service (LOS) requirements for non-freight customers of the future. The project outcome will enable road managers to make informed decisions in providing the required level of service to these customers. The key findings of a survey in Australia and New Zealand, with 1920 respondents, identified the following key issues that should be considered when defining a LOS for non-freight customers: * The highest importance ratings were given to road condition, road signs, driving on wet roads, line markings and reflectors and road width, all with 97% or more ratings of ‘very important’ or ‘important’. * The highest acceptability ratings were given to road signs (91% acceptable or better), line markings and reflectors (84%), safety barriers (82%) and road width (80%). * The highest acceptability ratings for pedestrian facilities were personal security (80% acceptable or better), enough space for pedestrians (78%), distance from motor vehicles (77%) and convenient routes to destinations. * There were only small regional differences in the importance ratings, but metropolitan respondents gave higher acceptability ratings than did regional or remote respondents, except for issues such as congestion and rest areas (for road attributes) and rest points with seating (for pedestrian facilities). * The small differences in the importance ratings given across metropolitan, inner regional and outer regional/remote areas means that it should be possible to develop one LOS framework that covers metropolitan and regional roads. The following steps are suggested as a possible guide for the development of customer-focussed LOS: 1. Decide on the priority of all the possible user needs that will be included in the LOS framework. 2. Review these options and decide on the steps required to develop an acceptability function for each of the high-priority needs. 3. Undertake empirical studies of the type indicated to establish suitable acceptability functions. 4. Allocate LOS grades to each of the needs based on the acceptability functions. 5. Decide on the operational targets to be adopted for the different road categories; road user panels or stakeholder representatives may be helpful in this process. Steps 1 to 3 could be undertaken by individual agencies, but they constitute a major undertaking which would benefit from a unified approach. Step 4 could either be undertaken at an agency level, or at a collective level, while Step 5 is clearly to be undertaken at the individual agency. (Author/publisher)
Abstract