Experts are helping councils shift from reacting to crashes, to preventing them before they happen.
As Australia faces its fourth consecutive year of rising road trauma, the National Transport Research Organisation (NTRO) is working closely with councils to shift how local government approaches road safety – from reactive responses to proactive and even predictive, data-driven strategies.
For David McTiernan, NTRO’s National Leader Transport Safety, it’s about helping councils turn high-level policy into targeted, fundable action.
“Last year, and now 2025, we’ve seen a year-on-year increase in road deaths and serious injuries across the nation,” McTiernan said.
“The rate of that increase is itself increasing. It’s definitely on an upward swing – and going against every national, state and territory strategy in place.”
For local government, this is not an abstract challenge. Councils manage the majority of Australia’s road network, meaning they are at the coalface, grappling with wildly different risk profiles depending on their geography, population, funding, and road use patterns.
“We fully appreciate there’s no one-size-fits-all,” McTiernan said.
“But local government is local government, and road safety issues are road safety issues. There’s quite a common theme across them, even if solutions need to be tailored.”
The rural-metro divide matters
NTRO’s work has revealed stark differences between metropolitan and regional road safety trends. In urban settings, crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists are becoming more prevalent. In regional and rural areas, the profile changes significantly.
“In those areas, it’s typically single-vehicle crashes – run-offs into trees, roadside hazards or high-speed loss-of-control events. The outcomes are typically severe: fatal or serious injuries,” McTiernan said.
“It’s not tourists, or caravaners. Overwhelmingly it’s local people, on local roads, that is impacting local communities.”
The pattern points to infrastructure issues that councils can influence, like road shoulders, lane width, roadside hazards, but they often lack the resources to address these systemically. That is where NTRO’s tools and support come in.
Past and future: RSIT and NetRisk2
Two tools underpin much of NTRO’s current road safety push: the Road Safety Intelligence Toolkit (RSIT), and NetRisk2. While RSIT focuses on understanding past crashes, NetRisk2 aims to predict (and prevent) future incidents.
“RSIT ingests crash data from the relevant jurisdiction. It allows you to interrogate it by local government area and visualise trends. In some states, councils already have access to this kind of data. But if they don’t, RSIT simplifies the process with dropdown menus, charts and maps,” McTiernan said.
“NetRisk2 is very different. It doesn’t rely on crash history. It uses risk assessment models – The Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) and The Australian National Risk Assessment Model – to analyse a council’s road infrastructure and produce risk scores for each section of road. For AusRAP reporting, that gets translated into a Star Rating, which is intuitive: one star is highest risk, five stars is safest.”
The real power of NetRisk2 lies in its forward-looking nature.
“If there’s a road with no crashes, but is scored as a one- or two-star infrastructure risk profile, that tells us we’ve been lucky – so far. Understanding where the higher risk is on their networks allows councils to prioritise investment before the worst happens,” McTiernan said.
The model is also being applied to roads in the planning stage, through a process known as Star Rating for Designs.
“Councils can assess a planned road before it’s built. If it scores poorly, you go back and tweak the design. This can be a powerful approach and is where investment in safer infrastructure is heading,” he said.
Turning data into dollars
Data alone will not save lives or secure funding, but Network Safety Plans (NSPs) help a lot.
“RSIT tells you what’s happened. NetRisk2 tells you where the future risk is. But a Network Safety Plan pulls it all together. It’s a prioritised list of works and their cost, and it reports how many deaths and serious injuries could be prevented if the investment is made,” said McTiernan.
“That becomes a powerful internal document for shaping council works program. It also gives councils a ready-to-go list for grant applications that are available via federal and state programs such as Black Spot, Roads to Recovery, etc.”
He points to Bundaberg Regional Council as a standout example.
“Bundaberg is really the poster council for this approach. They funded the development themselves – from road surveys to risk assessments to the final network safety plan. NTRO worked with Bundaberg to shape what their Network Safety Plan should look like, and we had to adapt some of the national targets to fit their network mix,” McTiernan said.
He notes that while the National Road Safety Strategy sets a goal of having 80 per cent of vehicle kilometres travelled on roads rated three stars or better, that might not be the best metric for all councils.
“It’ll work at the national level – on highways, for example – but local networks vary and so infrastructure priorities may need to be adapted and councils develop targets that reflect their realities,” McTiernan said.
Embedding the Safe System approach
The Safe System model – based on safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and safer people – is central to NTRO’s philosophy and the national strategy. McTiernan admits integrating it is a work in progress, particularly at the local level.
“It’s not just local councils. Even at the state and federal level, and across industry, there’s still work to do embedding Safe System thinking,” he said.
“Council engineers know the term. But when we ask if they’ve applied it, the hands drop. It’s partly because it’s been a top-down development. Councils are used to the black spot model – you need crashes to justify funding. Safe System is about preventing those crashes in the first place.”
Some pillars of the model are easier to implement than others.
“Post-crash care? Very little a council can do. Safer vehicles? Not directly, though councils can influence their fleet procurement policies. But safe speeds and safer infrastructure – that’s where local government can really move the dial.”
Speed in particular is a live issue, and a community one.
“It’s not about blanket reductions. It’s about the right speed for the right road,” McTiernan said.
“Higher speeds where we’re moving between towns, and lower speeds where we live, work and play. Councils can support that through design, even if they can’t set speed limits directly.”
Micro-mobility and the next safety frontier
As micro-mobility – e-scooters, e-bikes, and similar modes – proliferates, NTRO is turning its attention to this new safety frontier.
“People are mixing at speed with both pedestrians and cars,” McTiernan said.
“It’s a vulnerable group, and the infrastructure isn’t always there yet to support safe use.”
Western Australia is currently holding an inquiry into e-rideable safety, and NTRO is preparing a submission.
“This is about asking: what infrastructure do we need? Do we separate e-rideables, pedestrians and cyclists? What’s realistic for councils to provide? The community’s expectations are evolving, and we need to keep pace,” McTiernan said.
Building capacity and closing gaps
A recurring theme in McTiernan’s discussion is capacity, both financial and human. While some councils can self-fund ambitious plans, others simply cannot.
“We absolutely work with councils that don’t have internal road safety teams. Sometimes it starts from the asset management side – how do we use your condition data for safety insights? Sometimes it’s more strategic,” he said.
McTiernan emphasises that a Network Safety Plan does not have to be complex or expensive.
“There are lighter-touch models. Some states are already exploring that with their councils. We’re here to support that wherever we can,” he said.
That includes helping councils translate national and state policy into practical action.
“Council officers just want to get on with the job. They don’t have time to interpret dense strategy documents. Our role is to be that translator – from policy to project, from evidence to implementation.”
What’s next?
Looking ahead, NTRO’s priorities span the spectrum from traditional infrastructure assessments to emerging transport tech.
“Honestly, more of the same is still needed. Out of 537 councils, only a small portion have really engaged with the tools that work. So there’s still plenty to do in spreading that best practice,” McTiernan said.
NTRO is also leaning into innovation.
“In Western Australia, for example, we’re working with the City of Joondalup on a more future-focused program – something that looks beyond road safety and into integrated transport and technology.”
McTiernan also hints at a broader shift in how councils think about maintenance.
“We want to help councils develop asset management plans with a safety lens – not just a condition lens. A road in good condition isn’t necessarily a safe road,” he said.
“We’ve had 20 years of the Safe System approach. We’ve talked the talk. But we need to walk it and bring the community along for the ride.
“If we want to reach our targets – 50 per cent reduction in fatalities, 30 per cent in serious injuries by 2030 – local governments will have to lead the way. But they shouldn’t have to do it alone. That’s where we come in.”
