The Federal Office of Road Safety in the Department of Transport in Canberra has conducted road safety research programmes for over a decade. Over the past 4 years the level of funding available for contracted research has increased considerably, and is now approximately $800,000 per annum. An in house research capability is also maintained. An analysis is presented on how the office identifies the research needs in road safety, and how this is related to the policy initiatives and priorities of the federal government. The discussion addresses the three current strategic research areas of the office, namely, the national mass data system; behavioural factors in road crashes; and research into road safety enforcement measures, and describes how the process of establishing research priorities is applied in each case. (Author/publisher) For the record of the covering entry for the forum, see IRRD no 800342.
Abstract