ARRB appoints new lead for iRAP Centre of Excellence

ARRB recently welcomed Emily McLean to the team in the role of Leader – Infrastructure Safety Management.

While Emily is a part of the broader transport safety expertise at ARRB, her primary role will be to lead the co-ordination and development of ARRB’s national road infrastructure risk program. Utilising the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) and the Australian National Road Assessment Model (ANRAM), ARRB has long provided analysis and guidance to road managers, helping them identify safety priorities on the nation’s extensive road network.

Emily’s role will also see her lead ARRB’s contribution to global road safety via the International Road Assessment Programme’s (iRAP) Centre of Excellence in Australia.

With more than 17 years’ experience in transport engineering, policy development and advocacy, Emily has a strong history in road infrastructure risk assessments, having been involved with AusRAP since 2005 while working with Australia’s Automobile Clubs. That work saw her carry out Star Ratings and Risk Mapping for projects at state and national levels, covering all aspects of the process from technical analysis and reporting, to communications roles.

Emily has also previously contributed to road safety discussions at an international level via iRAP’s Global Technical Committee (GTC), a role that will continue since ARRB is a standing member of the GTC. Her most memorable project from her time at RACV was helping to establish iRAP in Vietnam, an experience that saw her visit that country and work with local stakeholders to identify and obtain existing datasets.

Emily is excited to again be involved in AusRAP and is looking forward to leading ARRB’s offering to support road safety improvements across Australia and expanding our contribution as Australia’s iRAP Centre of Excellence.

iRAP is the most developed and widely known infrastructure risk assessment approach globally, providing a network-based risk assessment in the form of Star Ratings where a 1-Star rating is the least safe road and a 5-Star rating considered the safest road.

In Australia, the iRAP model is known as AusRAP.

Currently applied in 102 countries, AusRAP has been used in Australia in one form or another for nearly two decades. ARRB’s original Australian research contributed to the development of iRAP during the early 2000s. For more than 20 years, ARRB has led research to identify the contribution of road infrastructure to crashes, and importantly what action is most effective at reducing the potential and severity of them.

ARRB has been involved in the development and application of AusRAP and ANRAM assessments here, and iRAP assessments at the international level.

Our work has also included the development of Austroads Road Stereotypes, which extends the iRAP Star Rating concept to standardised road layouts, increasing access of this valued road safety approach to local government practitioners.

With Austroads now taking on a leadership and co-ordination role for AusRAP, it was seen as important to involve ARRB in the governance committee for this new direction.

“ARRB’s continued commitment to AusRAP involves us working with our road agency members, local government, and Austroads to apply this new direction for AusRAP," Emily said.

“We look forward to this renewed direction for AusRAP and contributing to the national narrative via the AusRAP national steering and technical committees, and helping improve road safety across Australia."

Emily is based in Melbourne, Australia. For more information on AusRAP or ANRAM , contact Emily at emily.mclean@arrb.com.au