TARU: an overview

Transport and Road Update (TARU) is an alert service of published land transport material. It is designed to provide users with Australian and New Zealand land transport publication details, whilst also including information on relevant international material.

Journals

A wide range of journals and magazines are scanned for articles meriting inclusion in TARU. These include both transport-themed publications and other titles that may occasionally contain an article of interest. As an example, in April and May 2010 articles from the following core journals were included in TARU:

ACI Materials Journal
ITE Journal
Human Factors
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Bridge Engineering
Road Materials and Pavement Design
Traffic Engineering and Control
Traffic Injury Prevention

Relevant open access electronic-only journals are monitored, including:

European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research
Journal of Transport and Land Use

Reports

TARU includes information on reports produced by a wide range of Australian and New Zealand bodies. Examples of regularly included publications include those released by:

Austroads
Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics
Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney
Monash University Accident Research Centre
National Transport Commission
New Zealand Transport Agency

TARU users will also find information on publications by other international institutions, for example:

Danish Road Directorate
MIROS Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research
PIARC, World Road Association
SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, Netherlands
Transportation Research Board, United States
TRL Ltd
UK Department for Transport
UK House of Commons Transport Committee
UMTRI University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute
VTI Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute

Theses

With many theses now released in electronic full text format, digital repositories are regularly scanned for dissertations suitable for TARU inclusion. These include:

TROVE (Australia)
NARCIS (Netherlands)
DiVA portal (Scandinavia)

Conference proceedings

The proceedings of Australian and internationally convened conferences relevant to the land transport sector are regularly sourced for inclusion in TARU. As an example, selected papers from the following conferences have so far been included in TARU during 2010:

32nd Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF)
13th Road Engineering of Asia and Australasia (REAAA) Conference
Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) Conference 2010
Australasian Road Safety Research Policing and Education Conference 2010
12th International Conference on Travel Behaviour Research
15th Road Safety on Four Continents Conference
HVTT11: International Heavy Vehicle Symposium
2nd International Sprayed Sealing Conference
24th ARRB Conference
11th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport (Thredbo 11)
4th International Conference on Driver Behaviour and Training