Route Surveys and Route Assessments

For certain heavy vehicle types, state road authorities and local councils require a route survey or a route assessment to grant access. These are detailed assessments of transport routes that highlight all potential hazards and, if required, detail the procedure to mitigate the identified hazards. Advantia can undertake these assessments to get your combination on the road.

DESKTOP AND PHYSICAL ASSESSMENTS

When a desktop assessment is required, Advantia will provide drawings, schematics and other documentation using our extensive knowledge of heavy vehicle performance. If a physical assessment is required, we can undertake a site inspection, identify all possible hazards along the route.

Our access to specialised heavy vehicle engineering software and expertise in assessing road performance for heavy vehicle access ensures the best possible outcome every time.

These assessments can be anything from a swept path overlay demonstrating the vehicle’s geometry against an intersection or a comprehensive report outlining all relevant vehicle and infrastructure features, including:

Lane widths Clear zones and crash barriers Batter slope severity Lane and shoulder widths Sight distance Road delineation Ponding/flooding Roadside signage Bridge widths Severity of grades Crossfall and superelevation Overtaking provision Overhead clearance Pavement quality Skid resistance

CREDENTIALS

To complement Advantia’s commitment to maintaining the highest level of quality, Advantia’s senior staff maintain accreditation as road safety auditors through the Victorian Department of Transport. The road safety auditor accreditation requirement is beyond the legal requirement for route surveys but ensures that all areas of route applicability and safety are accounted for during an Advantia route assessment.

Vehicles that require route assessment

Councils can request a route assessment or a route survey for a variety of reasons. Often, it’s in relation to ‘last mile’ access or where the vehicle may be considered to pose a risk to infrastructure. Typical examples include 20-metre B-doubles and 30+ metre A-doubles (road train) on local council roads (for ‘last mile’ access) and larger road trains (Level 3 and Level 4 PBS combinations).

Advantia’s strong contribution to Route Assessment guidelines

Advantia has authored and co-authored several of the route assessment guidelines used by Australia’s road managers. In addition, Advantia has had experience with using the guidelines from every jurisdiction and the PBS (national) Network Classification Guidelines. (Publicly available guidelines: NTC, TMR,RMS,DPTI,MRWA).

Typical considerations

The factors that are considered important for a route assessment depend on the jurisdiction and the route. Assessments requiring assessment on infrastructure and traffic consideration will generally require physical route assessment. Alternatively, where simulations like the one below can be undertaken to demonstrate safe turning performance of vehicles, this can be completed via desktop.

* Note, as a Class 1 vehicle undertaking this turning manoeuvre, traffic management measures supported this turn.