Consulting a traffic engineer during a feasibility stage assessment may not be the first thought that comes to your mind. Traffic engineering services such as Traffic Impact Assessments, Parking Demand Assessments, Traffic Management Plans or Road Safety Audits are commonly sought in detailed design or planning stages of a project. Traffic engineers are not typically consulted until something goes wrong or until some document specifies that a traffic engineer must be hired. However, RedSquare Traffic believes this mindset is not always right. 

Traffic engineers can add value in very early stages of a project by:

• Maximising land-use opportunities by re-jigging parking, footpaths, internal roads or access points.
• Coming up with innovative transport and parking related solutions such as car stackers that would save costs which could end up being the difference of a 'go vs no go' decision outcome.
• Being the bridge that connects the development in consideration with transport network related objectives and future plans.
• Being the expert opinion that represents you in vital discussions with relevant authorities.

RedSquare Traffic provides low-cost, quick and efficient feasibility stage consultations. Keep in mind to consult a traffic engineer next time even when you are 100% certain there is no other alternative, as it doesn't hurt to ask. 
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Leave transport to us, you handle the rest. There is enough burden in other areas. 

RedSquare Traffic
Creativity in Transport Engineering 

​If your land is located within the Principle Public Transport Network (PPTN) area boundaries of your Local Government Area, a reduced car parking requirement applies to your development site. This is specified under Clause 52.06 of the Planning Scheme. In certain development types such as restaurants, this can be a significant reduction of the required number of parking spaces. For the development to qualify under this scheme, it must fall within the PPTN area and your land must fully or partially fall within 400m of public transport access on the PPTN. Reduced parking provisions also promotes the use of active and public transport modes. It's always best to get these requirements checked before you rule out your development. 

- RedSquare Traffic
Creativity in Transport Engineering

​If the answer to the above question is 'YES', you have made a mistake. Here is an example. We recently prepared a parking demand assessment for a restaurant that can serves for 150+ customers in indoor and outdoor seating areas. Guess how many car parking spaces it provides? Five. Yes, just five. 
Statutory parking rates of Clause 52.06 of the Planning Scheme states that a rate of 0.4 car parking spaces per customer applies to restaurants. At that rate, this restaurant would have ideally required 60 car parking spaces. A little math here, an average car parking space is 2.6m x 4.9m, which equates to 12.74 square meters. The land area required for just the 60 parking spaces would be 764.40 square meters. Then you add the parking aisle widths, pedestrian paths etc. You would need to purchase another 1000 square meter land just to fit car parking spaces in them. 
This is far from reality, isn't it? Local council do not require you to follow the statutory requirements precisely. As long as a car parking demand assessment is provided with accurate information, a parking requirement reduction is allowed. 
In fact, councils support drifting away from car parking as long as you have a solid plan. A solid plan typically includes the following:

• Providing end-trip facilities for cyclists
• Promoting the use of public transport
• Promoting walking to and from your property
• Providing time-restricted car parking spaces
• Encouraging the use of car sharing schemes
• Providing innovating systems such as car stackers or vehicle charging stations

These ideas are almost always inline with Integrated Transport Plans & Strategies of many local government areas. Through above ideas, together with the ability to use street parking or other public car parking facilities, you can operate a business such as a restaurant with very low parking numbers. 
If you think about it, providing the exact requirement is in fact supporting the use of motor cars in place of other sustainable transport modes. 
This is where traffic engineers can help. We help determine these transport related opportunities and assist you through the process of getting your development plan approved. RedSquare Traffic's traffic engineers prepare Car Parking Demand Assessments, Traffic Impact Assessments, Traffic and Parking Assessments which are required under the Planning scheme to support reductions of car parking spaces. 

Talk to us today to learn more about parking space reductions or car parking demand assessments. 

- RedSquare Traffic
Creativity in transport engineering

Rural roads or local roads with very few amounts of traffic aren't always provided with street lighting. At night, driving on these narrow roads can be risky. Although you may lodge numerous requests with your Council, they may not prioritise your road ahead of other major roads in the area and install street lighting. For subdivisions and unilluminated internal roads within a private property, it may be extremely costly to install light poles. 

In a situation like this, these guideposts can be a simple and effective treatment that can be used on roads to increase visibility, especially at night. The red and white markers on these guideposts glow in the dark and indicate the edges of the road. Especially in rural settings like what is shown in the photo, these can be vital in preventing vehicles from driving off the road carriageway. In narrow points like culverts, guideposts are recommended both on the approach and departure ends. According to road design guidelines, in Australia, guideposts with red markers must be installed on the left side of the road and ones with white markers must be placed on the right side of the road.  

These simple cost-effective local area traffic management (LATM) treatments go unnoticed in the midst of fancy street light poles, rumble strips, RRPMs and road safety barriers. 

Talk to traffic engineers of RedSquare Traffic to learn more about guideposts and other traffic engineering treatments. Follow our blog for more articles like. 

Relevant Links:

• Traffic Impact Assessments
• Road Safety Audits
• Traffic Engineering

RedSquare Traffic's team performing a turning movement survey at the above intersection saw a near miss crash that could have resulted in a fatality or a serious injury. A car approaching from northwest having successfully avoided a potential rear-end crash at Outlet Road, had to avoid another conflict at the gravel road further southeast (Coghlans Road). We couldn't help but notice the below par spacing of the two intersections (Outlet Road and Coghlans Road), which is currently at 109.7m, where it should ideally be 275m in a rural 100km/h zone. The 275m space is known as the functional area of an intersection. It goes without saying, the geometry of the other legs of this intersection only makes this intersection a complex one, in a rural context. 

Austroads Guide to Road Design Part 4 defines this situation as "Stopping distance is a method of assessing the required downstream distance. This allows a driver to pass through the intersection before having to decide that it is necessary to stop because of a conflict at a downstream access connection".

It is true, in a rural context it may not always be necessary to provide the distances specified on the standards and regulations especially due to low turning traffic volumes. However, it is always in a scenario like this that crashes are likely to happen as drivers have low expectations of turning vehicles. Lack of street lighting only make it worse. 

A common traffic engineering solution is to provide a basic auxiliary right turn (BAR) treatment or to provide a widened shoulder to allow for a vehicle to get around a stopped/stopping vehicle without causing a rear-end crash. This also increases space available for an emergency manoeuvre to avoid unexpected conflicts at an intersection. 

Keep your eyes on the road. It only takes a millisecond for something terrible to happen. 

Follow RedSquare Traffic's blog to read more articles like this. Talk to us for all your traffic engineering and road safety engineering needs. 

RedSquare Traffic​