Postgraduate - UnitCIV5306 - Road safety engineering

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Engineering
Organisational Unit	Department of Civil Engineering
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2014 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	G Rose, K Midson

Synopsis

The unit will explore the fundamentals and role of road safety engineering theory and practice. An appreciation of the design of traffic elements on the road network and a rigorous detective approach to investigating road crash data will be developed. Participants will learn applied skills to find road crash data and analyse it to determine the nature and extent of road crash problems at any given site. An ability to translate road crash data into meaningful information, determine counter measure options from thorough analysis of information and prioritise and evaluate counter measure implementation programs will be cultivated.

Outcomes

The objectives of the unit are to gain a clear understanding of:

why road safety is important, how we can achieve improvements and who is doing the work;
the multidisciplinary nature of road safety and why we need to use a combination of engineering, education and enforcement to be successful;
the behaviour of road users and ways in which the road environment can be designed/improved to cater for their needs;
the complexity of the human/vehicle/road system and how the interrelationships work to influence the level of safety;
what are the legal responsibilities of road authorities and decision makers and how they can fulfil them;
how to undertake accident investigations;
how to collect accident data and what to look for in quality data;
how to analyse accident data, turn it into information and develop cost effective, practical counter measures;
what needs to be done after treating a site and how to do it; and
how to be proactive in preventing accidents before they occur

Assessment

Assignments: 50%, Examination (3 hours): 50%.
Students are required to achieve at least 45% in the total continuous assessment component (assignments, tests, mid-semester exams, laboratory reports) and at least 45% in the final examination component and an overall mark of 50% to achieve a pass grade in the unit. Students failing to achieve this requirement will be given a maximum of 45% in the unit.

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Jeffrey Walker

Workload requirements

150 hours study