Emerging types of private vehicles and their implications for road system management

DATE: 
Thursday, June 25, 2009, 12:00pm to 1:00pm PDT
SPEAKERS: 
Geoff Rose, Director, Institute of Transport Studies, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne Australia

Room 315 in the Engineering Building (the ITS Lab)

Abstract: This seminar will describe the results of a recent study for the Australian National Road Authority (Austroads) which reviewed emerging types of private vehicles, including everything from Segways and mobility scooters to three wheel cars and micro/mini cars, and their implications for road system management.The emergence of some of those vehicle types presents real challenges from the perspective of safely managing their integration into the road system even though they present some real opportunities from the perspective of improving the sustainability of the transport system. Although the analysis is largely from an Australian perspective, some of the general insights which came from the study are transferable and one of the key recommendations (regarding moving towards more performance based than prescriptive based standards for vehicles) has potential international application.