Where and when to put overtaking lanes on two-way, two-lane rural roads

Changing lifestyles and the surge in development outside Australia’s major cities mean two-way, two-lane rural roads are carrying more vehicles than ever.

Sea changers and tree changers, as well as increased development on our city fringes, means two-lane rural roads are seeing growth in traffic volumes that may not have been predicted when they were initially planned and built.

ARRB's new Rural Overtaking Assessment Modelling tool (ROAM) can help assess the level of service and overtaking opportunities to inform planning and investment works for rural roads. 

ROAM offers visualisation of the mapping of survey data, which allows for improved auditing of input road attributes.

With visualisation comes a deeper understanding and insight into how vehicles are operating on roads based on the modelling. This allows road managers to better plan and develop their assets in a cost-effective and affordable way.

Benefits of ROAM:

• Unique software that models entire roads based on their actual geometry, as collected by ARRB survey vehicles;
• Traffic simulated as it behaves on the road based on the horizontal and vertical curves and gradients, sight distances and available overtaking opportunities;
• This allows the model to determine where along the road platooning typically occurs due to faster vehicles becoming impeded behind slower vehicles;
• It is a system approach to modelling traffic along a specific road that other simulation software cannot easily replicate.

Watch our webinar explaining ROAM, and how it can benefit road managers.