National pedestrian design guidelines

Image credit: Department of Transport and Main Roads

Overview of action

Action 1.10, Action Plan for Walking 2019–2021
Status: Complete

Support Austroads’ update of national pedestrian design guidelines in line with good practice, including delivery of training on updated guidance.

Achievements

Austroads publishes a range of guidance covering the design, construction, maintenance and operation of the road network in Australia and New Zealand. The Guides to Traffic Management, Road Design and Road Safety are the most relevant to the planning, design and implementation of pedestrian facilities.

The guidance with respect to pedestrians, however, had not been comprehensively updated since 1995 when traffic management was mainly focused on maximising movement of private motor vehicles. Lack of up-to-date guidance made it difficult for planners and engineers to introduce street environments that are comfortable, safe, inclusive and attractive for pedestrians. 

The project to update Austroads guidance therefore adopted two objectives:

• To provide road authorities with the tools to achieve a consistent approach to walking provision to reduce congestion, reduce pedestrian fatalities and injuries, and achieve more liveable and walkable towns and cities.
• To develop training to build both capability and capacity within road authorities to achieve better pedestrian operational and safety outcomes.

Key project stages included:

• Literature and guidance stocktake of national and international best practice.
• Industry survey and a technical review to identify gaps, needs and case studies.
• Develop draft content for national and New Zealand key stakeholder review.
• Final reporting and approval by Austroads Network Task Force and Board.
• Training including the preparation of a project report and training webinars to disseminate the guidance updates within industry.

Through the guidance review and industry survey, the project team identified the following eight themes that provided direction for updating the guidance:

1. Introduce the concepts of ‘walkability’ and ‘network accessibility’ as key transport planning tools.
2. Better recognise walking as a mode of transport and the footpath as an important part of the road cross section.
3. Update the different types of pedestrians and how to address their needs.
4. Emphasise and embed the characteristics of a good walking network and facility.
5. Encourage priority for pedestrians where appropriate.
6. Reinforce safety and personal security outcomes for pedestrians.
7. Reflect best practice design throughout.
8. Address terminology issues that are not positive towards walking.

The review resulted in changes to Austroads Guide to Traffic Management Parts 3, 4, 5 ,6, 7 and 8, and recommended changes to Austroads Guide to Road Design Parts 1, 2, 3, 4A, 4B, 4C, 6 and 6B (in progress).

Training on the updated Austroads Guide to Traffic Management was delivered by Austroads in May and June 2020 via webinars on better planning for high quality walking environments in our towns and cities and why and how to measure walking.

Additional training webinars related to content in the Austroads Guide to Road Design were delivered by Austroads in February 2021 covering:

• Road Space Allocation for Pedestrians.
• Midblock Crossings for Pedestrians.
• Pedestrian Planning and Design at Intersections.
• Pedestrian Planning and Design for Activity Centres.
• Pedestrian Planning and Design for Residential Areas.

All webinars have been recorded and made available on the Austroads website. 

Next steps

The Austroads Guide to Road Safety is being separately reviewed by Austroads. This involves restructuring the series based on overseas guide structures and directions, and national and international good practice.

In parallel, Austroads has also recently published a research report on Integrating Safe System with Movement and Place for Vulnerable Road Users. This work identifies treatments that are considered safe system compliant across a range of movement and place categories.

Lead agencies

Austroads
Department of Transport and Main Roads

More information

Read the Austroads updated pedestrian planning and design guidance.

Read the research report on Integrating Safe System with Movement and Place for Vulnerable Road Users.