In the area of road safety in particular, the Australian automobile clubssee that they have an important role in raising community awareness of the contribution which road infrastructure can make to road safety. This hasthe overt aim of generating public support for a political commitment to direct greater financial and technical resources to this area, and thus, to the extent that this is successful, allow the road agencies to continue or expand their important work in managing and upgrading the safety of theroad network. A recent specific example of this complementary role has been the development of the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP). This program was developed to raise community awareness of the importance of road and road environment in the broader context of road safety. While AusRAP was an initiative of the automobile clubs, nevertheless it was developed in cooperation with the various Australian state road agencies. This cooperation included access to road agency data, and a commitment from the automobile clubs to keep the agencies informed about both the evolution of the AusRAP model, and consultation on the results of the modeling prior topublic release. This paper outlines the development and application of the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) in the context of the "safersystems" approach to road safety. The paper focuses in particular on the development and application of the model in the state of Victoria by the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV), and RACV's use of AusRAP to raisecommunity awareness of road and road environment safety. Particular attention is also paid to the development and maintenance of appropriate relationships with the road agencies, recognizing the distinct though complementary roles which each have to play.A carefully crafted and multi-faceted communication plan is essential to raising community awareness. In AusRAP, amix of stakeholder, media, political, and road authority briefings were used to distribute and promote the essential AusRAP message, using the outputs of the AusRAP program - in particular the AusRAP star ratings. Combining the technical competence of the AusRAP program, the effectiveness of the communication activities to the public and political community, and the recognition of the value of the AusRAP program to the road agencies, the authors are confident that AusRAP star ratings will be increasingly recognized as a very useful measurement of a road's "fitness for purpose", with reduced road trauma as a result. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Samenvatting