A Local Government Road Hierarchy A Discussion Paper by Mick Savage Following a meeting with the Office of Local Government to discuss some specific elements of the Fit for the Future criteria, it has become apparent that Special Schedule 7 needs to be audited to provide some consistency across councils. In order to achieve this a framework has to be developed covering parameters such as: • Levels of Service; • Condition Assessment; • Road Hierarchy; which will enable benchmarking of activities. The IPWEA Board has requested that the Directorate develop a road hierarchy framework for use by Local Government in NSW. Road Hierarchy Background An initial road hierarchy was published in Australia by the National Association of Australian State Road Authorities (NAASRA). The NAASRA hierarchy dealt primarily with the National, State and Regional Road network but did not adequately address the local road end of the spectrum, nor did it deal qualitatively with the unsealed network. The principles underpinning the NAASRA road hierarchy system is attached as Appendix A. NAASRA has now become Austroads which has undertaken further work on the development of a road hierarchy framework. It should be noted that Local Government is a member of Austroads through ALGA. It is proposed to use the work published by Austroads as a basis for developing a Local Government road hierarchy and reporting system. This is discussed in detail in the following sections. The State-wide Road Network Most councils in NSW have a full range of road types from arterial roads to local access roads, but their physical characteristics vary substantially. In addition, 50% of the local road network is unsealed, including about 3,000km of unsealed Regional Road. How can these roads be compared with Regional Roads in the Sydney Metropolitan area for example? In order to outline these differences the table below shows a comparison of characteristics of the published road hierarchies of Blacktown City Council and a typical Shire Council. The source document extracted from the Blacktown website is attached as Appendix B. Vehicles per day Hierarchy Blacktown Typical Regional Council Regional Administrative Administrative Arterial/Distributor >15,000 >2,000 Sub-Arterial / Collector 6,000 – 20,000 1,000 – 2,000 Major/ Minor Collector Roads 4,000 – 10,000 200 – 1,000 Local Access 1,500 – 2,000 <200 Councils across NSW vary across this range. This makes comparison within and across councils difficult. The Austroads Approach The Austroads approach to development of a road hierarchy is contained in their Manual Guide to Traffic Management Part 4; Network Management. An extract of Chapter 4 is attached as Appendix C. Figure 4.2 from the Guide (below) provides a sound view of the principles to be applied in developing a sound road hierarchy. In particular, it shows the balance required between mobility and access to meet user needs. This implies that each road authority (Council) will need to meet these competing needs and will require a range of functional road types to do so. Based on the above information the following functional classification is proposed: Classification Sealed Network Unsealed Network Regional Declared as Regional Roads with Declared as Regional Roads with funding contribution by RMS funding contribution by RMS Arterial Have parallel functions to the Have parallel functions to the Regional Road network and carry Regional Road Network and carry highest volumes of traffic. high volumes of traffic. May Provide for traffic movements include heavy vehicle access between regions. Provide access routes between regional centres. to major industrial areas and may provide for public transport. Distributor Provide the connections between Provide connections between the arterial parts of the network and arterial network and the Local the Local Collector network. Collector network. May also May also service industrial areas service industrial facilities and and local facilities such as grain / freight terminals. May also shopping centres and freight provide school bus routes in many terminals. areas. Local Collector Provides access to the distributor Provides access to the distributor network from local access roads. network from local access roads. May provide access to individual May provide access to individual industrial facilities and links to larger facilities such as feedlots local shopping centres. and local grain silos. May also provide some school bus links. Local Access Major function is to provide Major function is to provide access to individual properties. access to individual farms and May also provide access to local properties. May also provide tourist sites. access to local tourist sites and recreation facilities. This is a basic description which may need to be added to and enhanced to cover a wider range of functions. There may be some benefit in adding indicative speed limits and other attributes. Hierarchy Characteristics Section 4.3 of the Guide to Traffic Management Part 4; Network Management discusses the comparison between rural and urban networks briefly and concludes that while traffic volumes are much less on rural roads the relative proportions of the respective networks are similar. This is shown in Fig. 4.4 below: The source data supporting the graph is included in Appendix C. Data available from the 2012 Road Asset Benchmarking Survey confirms that Regional roads make up 18% of the total local road network and 4% of the unsealed road network. The above graph suggests that there is a linear relationship between road classification and road length as a proportion of the total network length. If this holds true for NSW Councils then the proportions of the network in each classification might be: Sealed Network Unsealed Network Classification % Road Length % Road Length Regional 15 5 Arterial 15 10 Distributor 25 25 Local Collector 25 30 Local Access 20 30 If these (or adjusted) percentages apply across the State they will provide a guide to the overall network hierarchy expected. This will allow identification of those parts of the network that do not fall within these general limits (and the will be some) so that the isolated data points can be verified (audited). Alternately, if the actual data collected is more random than that suggested above, the actual lengths within each of the classifications of the hierarchy can be questioned and verified. In either case, once the hierarchy has been identified within each council ongoing audit will be a straightforward case of showing where asset acquisitions and disposals have occurred and in some cases where classifications within the hierarchy have changed due to changing circumstances. Data Collection In order to make the data collected of use to the councils and the wider industry, it is suggested that for each classification within the hierarchy the following data should be reported: • Hierarchy classification • Written Down Capital Value • Road Length (km) • Pavement area (m2) • CAPEX Expenditure ($) • CAPEX Area Treated (m2) • OPEX Expenditure ($) • OPEX Area Treated (m2) This data will allow calculation of unit rates ($/m2) for both capital and operational expenditure as well as the % of the network element being replaced during each reporting period. Data Reporting The variability of data across the state will be significant as a result of factors such as climate, soil type, council size, traffic volumes and council classification. It is suggested that useful information might be obtained by grouping data into Australian Local Government Classifications which are readily available for each council. Reporting on this basis would not remove the climate and soil type variations in the data. Given the current move towards the creation of regional groups of councils data could be reported on a membership of regional group basis. Such reporting would largely remove the variations in council type, soil type and climate and would provide useful information to the group to carry out annual performance reviews of road management, including costings and processes. For discussion. Appendix A NAASRA Road Classification Class 1 - Those roads which form the principal avenue for communication between major regions of the Commonwealth, including direct connections between capital cities. Class 2 - Those roads, not being Class 1, whose main function is to form the principal avenue of communication for movements: • Between a capital city and adjoining States and their capital cities; • Between a capital city and Key Towns, and • Between Key Towns. Class 3 - Those roads, not being Class 1 or 2, whose main function is to form an avenue of communication for movements: • Between Important Centres and the Class 1 and Class 2 roads and/or Key Towns; • Between Important Centres, and • Of an arterial nature within a town in a rural area. Class 4 - Those roads, not being Class 1, 2 or 3, whose main function is to provide access to abutting property (including property within a town in a rural area). Class 5 - Those roads which provide almost exclusively for one activity or function and which cannot be assigned to Classes 1, 2, 3 or 4. Class 6 - Those roads whose main function is to form the principal avenue of communication for massive traffic movements. Class 7 - Those roads, not being Class 6, whose main function is to supplement the Class 6 roads in providing for traffic movements or which distribute traffic to local street systems. Class 8 - Those roads, not being Class 6 or 7, whose main function is to provide access to abutting property. Class 9 - Those roads which provide almost exclusively for one activity or function and which cannot be assigned to Classes 6, 7 and 8. Appendix B You are here: Home > Planning and Development > Plans and Guidelines > Blacktown Road Hierarchy Blacktown Road Hierarchy Road Hierarchy in the Blacktown Local Government Area Roads are classified in several ways according to the volume of traffic they carry and the way they link areas together. These classifications assist Council to develop and implement appropriate Asset Management plans and resolve transport issues as they arise.