TfNSW has no specific road trauma reduction targets for regional New South Wales, despite differences in causes and characteristics of crashes in regional areas

NSW Government road safety strategies and plans since 2012 have used state-wide targets for reduction in road trauma. However, TfNSW has no documented plan for implementing these targets in regional areas and no specific target to reduce road trauma in regional New South Wales – despite regional New South Wales accounting for two-thirds of road crash fatalities.

The factors contributing to crashes on regional roads are different from those for metropolitan roads. For example, fatalities in regional areas are most likely to involve drivers of motor cars, whereas the largest number of road fatalities in metropolitan areas is amongst pedestrians. Similarly, whilst speed and illicit drugs are the two most prevalent causal factors in road crashes across the state (including regional New South Wales), fatigue is the next most frequently occurring contributing factor in regional New South Wales.

TfNSW advised the audit team that ‘the existing approach to trauma reduction targets in New South Wales aligns with the approach adopted by other jurisdictions, including internationally, which is to design road safety strategic plans around the jurisdictional accountability for management of safety systems at the National, State or local government level’. Chapters 2 and 4 provide details of the responsibilities of these jurisdictional levels.

There may well be legitimate reasons for the existing approach as articulated by TfNSW. However, in practice, it is possible for New South Wales as a whole to meet a single state-wide road trauma reduction target without reducing road trauma in regional areas. This is because of the higher population in metropolitan areas.

The fact is that the proportion of road fatalities in regional New South Wales roads has not reduced since 2012 – despite a long-term reduction in the total number of deaths on the state’s roads between 2012–2021. A target to reduce road trauma in regional New South Wales could sharpen TfNSW’s focus on targeting its efforts towards areas of greatest risk or provide more detailed insights on progress in reducing road trauma and fatalities in the geographic areas most represented in the state’s road toll.

There is no regional-specific strategy or plan to guide TfNSW’s road safety activities

The NSW Government’s policy on road safety is clear. However, there is no implementation plan specific to regional New South Wales, despite TfNSW acknowledging that regional areas are an ongoing problem due to their specific issues.

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 does include some specific actions for improving regional road safety such as the Safer Roads program, vehicle safety technology upgrades and the Local Government Road Safety Program.

There is also a strategic priority referred to as ‘creating safer country and urban places’ which has the stated objective of reducing fatalities on country roads and injuries in urban environments. However, this applies to both regional and metropolitan areas.

State-wide road safety strategies and plans list priority actions and initiatives and reflect the NSW Government’s policy position on road safety. While there are specific initiatives and programs focused on regional New South Wales, they are not integrated within a regional-specific plan, nor are they aligned to focus on reducing fatalities on regional roads.

TfNSW has acknowledged that plans are not produced based on geographic areas because ‘all road safety plans and strategies are designed around the jurisdictions and their management accountability and systems at the State or National government level. At a local government level, TfNSW advised the audit that road safety outcomes should be reflected in local council’s road safety strategic plans’.

The NSW Government established the Local Government Road Safety Program in 1992 to assist councils with safety on local roads, but only 52% of regional councils participated in the program in 2022–23

The Local Government Road Safety Program (LGRSP) was created in 1992 to assist councils in delivering locally based road safety initiatives within their communities.

This program includes the appointment of road safety officers (RSOs), local Road Safety Action Plans, and ongoing engagement with TfNSW staff. Employing a RSO is a joint process involving both TfNSW and the local council. Once appointed, the RSO is expected to develop and implement educational and behavioural projects and to prepare the council’s Road Safety Action Plan. A Road Safety Action Plan defines local road safety activities and projects and outlines how the council plans to address the road safety problems and issues relevant to their LGA.

The audit team has seen no evidence that TfNSW is consolidating local level plans to identify issues and strategies for regional New South Wales as a whole, or that it is leveraging the information provided by councils to inform management decisions about improving regional road safety outcomes.

Only 52% of local councils in regional New South Wales participated in the Local Government Road Safety Program in 2022–23, despite the fact that local councils own and manage approximately 80% of Local Roads.¹ Local councils also own and maintain Regional Roads that run through their local government areas.

Of the councils currently in the LGRSP, as at the end of September 2023, six had vacant RSO roles and no local road safety plans. Another two councils participated in a single project in 2022–23 but did not join the LGRSP.

This low level of involvement in regional LGAs has persisted since 2017–18 despite the funding advantages resulting from participation in the LGRSP and appointing an RSO.

TfNSW is aware of the gap in participation but notes that the program is voluntary and attempts at increasing participation have been intermittent.

Further, TfNSW has not undertaken any evaluations to determine whether projects completed under the Local Government Road Safety Program have reduced road trauma at the local level.

TfNSW has not updated the Local Government Road Safety Program since 2014, despite a commitment to do so in 2021

TfNSW advised the audit that the Local Government Road Safety program was reviewed in 2008 by the Australian Roads Research Board (a provider of consulting services), with a pilot conducted in 2010–11 to test the recommendations arising from this review. In July 2014, TfNSW implemented a revised delivery model in response to the review and pilot.

In July 2021, the NSW Government committed to updating the Local Government Road Safety Program following the NSW Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety (Staysafe Committee) finding that the program had remained unchanged since its inception in 1992.

In the NSW Road Safety Action 2022–2026, TfNSW committed to ‘review and expand the Local Government Road Safety Program to ensure every council has access to a Road Safety Officer to better resource their road safety planning’. However, by April 2023, this action had not progressed and had been labelled ‘At Risk’. As at the end of September 2023, there was no record of any action taken by TfNSW to mitigate this risk.

TfNSW has outstanding requests from 2021–22 for speed limit reviews from local councils in regional New South Wales

In July 2023, TfNSW released a new NSW Speed Zoning Standard to enable ‘greater consistency of speed zoning across NSW, and greater alignment of speed settings with the surrounding environments’.

The NSW Speed Zoning Standard requires TfNSW to conduct a preliminary review and notify the local council within four months of receiving a speed limit review request. However, there is no time limit imposed on TfNSW to finalise the review.

At the time of writing, TfNSW reported that there are seven unresolved speed limit review requests from councils in regional New South Wales. Three of these date from 2021–22 and the remaining four are from 2022–23.

Delays in responding to requests for speed limit reviews were an area of concern for several of the councils interviewed by the audit team, as well as those councils that engaged with the NSW Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety (Staysafe Committee) Inquiry into Speed Limits and Road Safety in Regional NSW (December 2022).

TfNSW has implemented measures to reduce road trauma across the state but has not assessed the effectiveness of these initiatives in reducing road trauma in regional New South Wales

TfNSW has not undertaken a systematic analysis of the combined impact of its road safety strategies and plans on road trauma in regional New South Wales since 2012.

TfNSW provided the audit with 17 separate instances of program evaluations it has completed since 2013. Of these:

• 6 provided an assessment of the impact of specific initiatives on road trauma reductions.
• only two provided an assessment of the impact of a specific initiative on road trauma reductions in regional New South Wales
• 5 were research reports rather than evaluations.

TfNSW has undertaken post-implementation reviews and evaluations for advertising and capability development campaigns. However, these reviews did not draw any conclusions on the impact of these initiatives on road trauma reductions.

TfNSW advised the audit that funding for the Towards Zero program is subject to Infrastructure NSW’s processes and frameworks including benefits realisation and post-evaluation. However, whilst it has shared a business case with the audit team, TfNSW has not provided any evidence of benefits realisation assessments.

In its formal response to the audit report, TfNSW stated that ‘independent road trauma modelling provided to the Audit Office demonstrates the positive impact of previous and existing road safety strategies and is based on thorough evaluations demonstrating reductions in trauma from road crashes’.

The audit does not dispute that multiple individual evaluations have been conducted but, the independent modelling report in question was not an evaluation of TfNSW’s road trauma countermeasures. Instead, the aim was to predict likely road trauma trends to the end of 2021 using data from other jurisdictions, as well as New South Wales. The audit team interviewed the authors of the independent modelling report as part of the audit process.

There is no consolidated, public reporting on total road safety funding allocated to regional New South Wales each year, and the Community Road Safety Fund has been underspent since 2019

The Community Road Safety Fund (CRSF) was legislated in 2013 to ensure that fines from road safety camera offences are reinvested for road safety purposes. TfNSW has stated that all its initiatives under the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 will be funded by the CRSF.

Fines from camera detected speeding, red-light and mobile phone use offences are to be used solely for road safety purposes through the Community Road Safety Fund. However, the Fund has been underspent every year since 2019–20. In the period 2014–2018, the Community Road Safety Fund was almost completely spent in each year.

The underspend has increased in size from 12% in 2019–20 to 20% in 2022–23, where the full year underspend was forecast to be $104 million. At least $13.5 million of this underspend was on regional road infrastructure projects with a further $73 million that was not allocated to a specific geographical area. Much of the underspend is reportedly the result of COVID-19, bushfires and floods delaying infrastructure projects, as well as skills shortages.

TfNSW advised the audit that as a protected fund under legislation, unspent funding remains in the CRSF and can be carried forward and allocated to deliver road safety outcomes in future years.

TfNSW, however, did not provide evidence that it had a plan to mitigate the impacts of these known risks of natural disaster and pandemic. The impact of the underspends is delayed road safety initiatives that may defer the achievement of significant reductions in road trauma in regional New South Wales. TfNSW advises ‘there is no reason to expect budget management and controls will not return to pre-COVID circumstances where the annual budget, since the establishment of the Fund in 2013, was managed to expend all the available funds within each financial year’.

TfNSW’s formal response to the audit report stated that the ‘NSW Government tables to NSW Parliament annual progress reports on road trauma outcomes which also outline expenditure of the Community Road Safety Fund, including the investment in regional NSW’. There is some information provided on funding for regional New South Wales in these annual reports, but it is not a complete picture.

The audit team also notes that the progress reports do not include:

• the level of funding that is allocated to regional New South Wales
• the budget allocated for the CRSF for that year, and any over- or under-spends against the budget
• the unspent funds carried forward from previous years.

By November 2024, Transport for NSW should:

1. Develop a regional implementation plan to support the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026, including an integrated and systematic accountability framework to measure, analyse and publicly report annually on:
   1. road safety trends and insights on a sub-regional level
   2. specific countermeasures that are tailored to the road safety needs of regional communities and to particular sub-regional ‘hotspots’
   3. the impact of countermeasures against road trauma reduction targets specific to regional New South Wales
   4. funding that is allocated to achieving road safety outcomes at a sub-regional level.
2. Develop and implement a plan to measure and mitigate the known and emerging risks causing underspends in the Community Road Safety Fund.
3. Expedite the review of the Local Government Road Safety Program and make recommendations to government aimed at increasing the uptake of the Program by councils in regional New South Wales.

In the last 100 years, the lowest number of road fatalities recorded in New South Wales was in 1923 when there were 231 deaths in a year. At that time, the state population was around 2.2 million and there were only 68,398 vehicles registered.

Since then, the number of vehicles and fatalities have both increased significantly. By 1970 the number of fatalities had increased to 1,310 and it peaked in 1978 with 1,384 fatalities. Since 1970 successive NSW Governments have introduced many initiatives to reduce road trauma. These include:

• making seat belts compulsory for all car seats (1971)
• introducing random breath testing (1982)
• introducing mobile speed cameras (1991–2008)
• introducing fixed speed cameras (1999)
• introducing mobile drug testing (2007)
• re-introducing mobile speed cameras (2010)
• introducing point to point cameras for heavy vehicles (2010)
• introducing mobile phone detection cameras (2019)
• enacting the Automated Enforcement Strategy (2022).

The trend in the number of fatalities since 1970, including the introduction of the initiatives listed above, is shown in Exhibit 1. Section 1.7 details recent trends in road safety trauma in regional New South Wales.

There are three tiers of administrative road classification in New South Wales. These are:

• State roads – the roads with the greatest arterial significance to the state’s commerce and industry. The NSW Government funds and, through TfNSW, manages State Roads and is accountable for the outcomes on these roads.
• Regional roads – provide the main connections between smaller towns and act as sub arterial roads in major urban areas. Local councils are responsible for the management and maintenance of regional roads. The NSW Government, through TfNSW, contributes funding assistance for the upkeep of these roads because of their sub arterial function.
• Local roads – roads that provide for local access and circulation. These are the responsibility of local councils, with limited funding assistance from the NSW Government and targeted funding for issues such as blackspots from the Australian Government.

The road network in New South Wales is vast — spanning approximately 200,000 kilometres. Of these roads, approximately 80% are classified as Local Roads managed by local councils. The NSW Government, through TfNSW, is responsible for the management of State Roads and provides funding for local councils to manage state-significant Regional Roads.

Section 163 of the Roads Act 1993 requires TfNSW to keep a record of all classified roads. TfNSW maintains a Schedule of Classified Roads and Unclassified Regional Roads which includes the details of highways, main, secondary or tourist roads in New South Wales.

Exhibit 2 illustrates the distribution of State and Regional roads across New South Wales, along with the local government areas.

The statutory responsibility for managing road safety outcomes across the entire New South Wales road network lies with Transport for NSW (TfNSW), pursuant to Schedule 1 of the Transport Administration Act 1988. Established in November 2011 as an integrated transport authority, TfNSW’s role is to improve the planning and coordination of transport services for the state, including freight.

Under the Road Transport Act 2013, TfNSW determines speed limits across the road network. TfNSW develops road safety strategy, policies, and programs with the aim of reducing road trauma on the state’s roads. It also manages vehicle registrations and driver licensing.

TfNSW advised the audit that the Safety, Environment and Regulation Division is the point of accountability for road safety within the department. Within this division, the Centre for Road Safety (CRS) is the main source for road safety expertise and governance arrangements.

Amongst other things, the CRS administers the Community Road Safety Fund (CRSF) and reports annually to Parliament on income and expenditure relating to the CRSF. The CRSF was legislated in 2013, pursuant to the Transport Administration Amendment (Community Road Safety Fund) Act 2012, to ensure that fines from camera detected speeding, red-light and mobile phone use offences are to be used solely for road safety purposes.

The NSW Police Force and local councils are key stakeholders in delivering improved road safety outcomes to the NSW community.

The NSW Police Force, through the Traffic and Highway Patrol Command, is responsible for the development and dissemination of advice on all matters relating to traffic policy, enforcement, education, and road trauma. This centralised Command oversees the deployment of strategically directed police enforcement operations across New South Wales.

Local councils are responsible for funding, planning, designing, and operating the road networks and footpaths in their local areas, pursuant to the Roads Act 1993, Roads Regulation 2018 and NSW Road Management Arrangements.

The Australian Government plays an important role in contributing to road safety outcomes. It regulates safety standards for new vehicles and allocates funding for infrastructure projects across the national highway and Local Road networks through five-year National Partnership Agreements. The Office of Road Safety coordinates national efforts to improve road safety outcomes across Australia.

The NSW Government shares responsibility with the Australian Government for implementing and facilitating work towards road safety targets set out in national road safety plans and strategies.

Further information on responsibilities for road safety is provided in Chapter 4.

The NSW Government, through TfNSW, has put in place a series of plans and strategies to tackle road safety since 2012. The main points of each are summarised here and more information can be found in Appendix two.

NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021

In December 2012, the NSW Government published the NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021 which was the first long-term road safety plan in New South Wales.

The NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021 introduced ‘Vision Zero’, which had the end goal of no ‘death or serious injury occurring on the road transport network’ by 2050.

The NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021 introduced state-wide targets to reduce:

• fatalities and serious injuries by at least 30% by 2021 (there was no baseline against which to measure progress)
• the fatality rate to 4.3 per 100,000 population by 2016 which was first set in the NSW 2021 State Plan, the ten-year plan developed in 2011.

NSW Road Safety Plan 2021

In February 2018, the NSW Government published the NSW Road Safety Plan 2021 which identified six priority areas and contained two state-wide targets:

• reduce road fatalities by at least 30% from 2008–2010 levels by 2021 (also a State Priority Target)
• zero fatalities and serious injuries on our roads by 2056 (an aspirational target).

The target for reducing fatalities was refined to include a baseline of the average number of fatalities recorded between 2008–2010. However, the target for reducing serious injuries was removed.

NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026

In April 2022, the NSW Government replaced the NSW Road Safety Plan 2021 with the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026.

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 included new state-wide targets:

• 50% reduction in fatalities by 2030 (from a 2018–2020 average)
• 30% reduction in serious injuries by 2030 (from a 2018–2020 average).

In parallel, Future Transport 2056, the NSW Government’s integrated vision for transport in New South Wales, includes the vision for zero trauma on the New South Wales transport network and the assurance that people enjoy safe travel and are not harmed when moving around the network. While this strategy was first released in 2018, an updated version of Future Transport 2056 was released in 2022 in the same year as the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026.

National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030

The National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 is a ten-year plan for reducing road trauma on Australia’s roads and is implemented by the Office of Road Safety in the Australian Government.

The national target is a reduction in annual fatalities of at least 50% by 2030 and a reduction in annual national serious injuries by at least 30% by 2030 nationally. The national strategy is focused on Towards Zero and uses the Safe System approach. This includes investigations for all fatal crashes and at least ten per cent of serious injury crashes.

The Australian Government is currently negotiating a new five-year National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on land transport projects. The NPA supports the delivery of infrastructure projects and sets out how the Australian Government and states will work together to deliver infrastructure projects for the benefit and wellbeing of Australians.

The NPA covers projects administered under the National Land Transport Act 2014 (Cth). Each state and territory has a separately agreed schedule to the NPA which indicates the levels of funding the Australian Government intends to provide for land transport infrastructure investments.

The NPA is negotiated between governments every five years, with the current NPA set to expire on 30 June 2024.

Regional New South Wales covers 98.5% of the total area of the state. Approximately 3.1 million people live in regional New South Wales, which is roughly one-third of the population of the state. As Exhibit 2, above, illustrates the road network in regional New South Wales is extensive.

This audit adopts two definitions used by TfNSW when referring to regional New South Wales, depending on the data source, the type of data gathered and the purpose of the analysis.

The first definition distinguishes between metropolitan New South Wales and regional New South Wales. Roads in regional areas are defined as roads in ‘all local government areas except Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Wollongong and Shellharbour, and those in metropolitan Sydney’.

The second definition is based on the TfNSW regions which reflect the geographical structure of its operational divisions. This definition splits New South Wales into Greater Sydney, and three regional areas – North, West and South. Exhibit 3, below, illustrates the boundaries of the TfNSW regions and the local government areas in the North, South and West regions.

There are six LGAs which are split by the regional boundaries used in this definition for which the regional status changes depending on which definition is used and TfNSW has advised the audit team of how it classifies these LGAs. These are:

• Newcastle and Lake Macquarie which are considered metropolitan by the first definition and as part of the North region by the second definition
• Wollongong and Shellharbour which are considered metropolitan by the first definition and as part of the South region by the second definition
• Wollondilly and Hawkesbury which are considered regional by the first definition and as part of the Greater Sydney region by the second definition.

Throughout this report, we will refer to location either as ‘metropolitan and regional New South Wales’ (as per the first definition above) or as ‘Greater Sydney and North, West or South regions’ (as per the second definition) depending on the data source used, as explained in Section 1.6.

Defining fatalities and serious injuries

A road fatality is defined as a person who dies within 30 days from injuries received in a road traffic crash.

A serious injury is defined as a person identified as:

• having an injury on a public road on the same day or the day after a crash
• who requires a hospital stay that is not an emergency department only admission (unless that admission ended in an interstate transfer, to private hospital or other medical facility)
• does not die within 30 days of the crash.

For the purposes of this audit, we focus on fatalities and serious injuries only.

In New South Wales, the NSW Police Force will attend and investigate ‘Major Traffic Crashes’ where:

• someone is killed or injured
• a party fails to stop and exchange particulars
• a driver is allegedly under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a drug.

Road trauma data can be either ‘matched’ or ‘unmatched’

Different types of data are available for different types of road incidents. The Centre for Road Safety refers to the data it collects as either matched or unmatched depending on the source.

Matched data is used for fatalities and those serious injuries for which a police report is made. This occurs when a crash is reported to the NSW Police Force who will record details at the scene of the accident, including the LGA. As fatalities and serious injuries require the involvement of health professionals, there will also be a record of the crash in ambulance and/or hospital data. When the health record can be matched to the police record, the data is referred to as matched.

Matched data is gathered for all road fatalities in New South Wales and approximately 48% of serious injuries. When using matched data, TfNSW has access to the crash data as recorded by the NSW Police Force. This allows it to categorise the location of the crash as either metropolitan (Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Wollongong and Shellharbour, and Greater Sydney) regional New South Wales or by TfNSW Region (see section 1.5 above).

However, there are instances where a health record cannot be matched to a police record. This will occur when a road crash injury is treated by ambulance and/or hospital staff but is not reported to the police. The data on these crashes are referred to as unmatched records.

Unmatched data does not record any location data about the crash. Instead, the data reports the location of the hospital where the patient is admitted and TfNSW records the TfNSW region in which the hospital is located.

Exhibit 4 illustrates the construction of these two data types and compares the information available in each one. 

The proportion of fatalities and serious injuries in regional New South Wales has mostly remained unchanged since 2012

Between 2012 and 2022, 67.8% of all road fatalities in New South Wales and approximately 40% of serious injuries occurred in regional areas. However, only one-third of the state’s population lives in regional New South Wales. These proportions have generally remained at this level for at least a decade.

Fatalities on regional roads in 2022 were 68.3% of the state total, which is slightly above the decade average of 67.8%. Serious injuries on regional roads in 2022 were 39.8% of the state total, which is very close to the decade average of 40%.

Fatalities and serious injuries differ between regional and metropolitan areas

TfNSW has state-wide targets for reducing road fatalities and serious injuries. However, there are notable differences in the level of road trauma incidents on regional roads compared to roads in metropolitan areas.

Exhibit 5 illustrates the number of fatalities between 2012 and 2022 on metropolitan and regional New South Wales roads, using matched data.

TfNSW achieved its target to reduce road fatalities in New South Wales ‘by 30% by 2021’, but since 2022 the number of road fatalities has been increasing

TfNSW set a target to reduce road fatalities in New South Wales by 30% by 2021 in the NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021 and the NSW Road Safety Plan 2021. In 2021, this goal was achieved when there was a 33% reduction in road fatalities in New South Wales compared to the benchmark of the average number of fatalities across the period 2008–2010.

However, TfNSW is yet to determine the impact of COVID-19 on road fatalities and serious injuries. Whilst lockdowns and restrictions on travel limited the movement of many people, this could have been offset, to some degree, by the increase in online purchasing and home delivery, necessitating more commercial road transport.

Since 2021, there has been an increase in fatalities both across the state and in regional New South Wales. In 2022, fatalities on NSW roads increased by 5.5% compared to the previous year and by two per cent in regional New South Wales.

Exhibit 6, above, shows that in 2023 (year to date) total fatalities on New South Wales roads have increased by 29.3% compared to the three-year average of fatalities (2020–2022) for the same period.

Similarly, Exhibit 7, above, shows that in 2023 (year to date) fatalities on regional New South Wales roads have increased by 32.7% compared to the three-year average of fatalities (2020–2022) for the same period.

TfNSW’s reporting on progress against state-wide targets is inconsistent

TfNSW publishes four reports, interactive crash statistics, and data files on the TfNSW open data site that report on state-wide road trauma.

Only one of these public reports, the NSW Road Toll Daily, analyses progress against the fatality reduction target. Neither the interactive crash statistics nor the open data files include references to the fatality reduction target.

TfNSW has published an annual Road Safety Progress Report since 2012 which followed the then Minister’s commitment to provide ‘a full account of income and expenditure of the Community Road Safety Fund’ each year. These reports provide detailed data on demographic, behavioural, location and crash type trends. However, they do not include reporting on the progress to achieving road safety targets.

There is no public reporting on progress against the serious injuries target even using preliminary data. TfNSW provides public reporting on serious injuries including a quarterly bulletin of serious injury crash data, but this does not include reporting on the reduction target. TfNSW cannot fully demonstrate the effectiveness of its investment in specific programs in the absence of reporting on targets.

It is difficult to evaluate progress against serious injury targets due to the split in serious injury data

TfNSW collects both matched and unmatched serious injury data, as explained previously. The matched serious injuries data contains considerably more detail than the unmatched data.

However, approximately 52% of all serious injuries are unmatched data. As a result, meaningful direct comparisons between the two datasets cannot be made for location data, crash factors and behavioural causes.

TfNSW has no specific trauma reduction targets for road safety in regional New South Wales

Road safety strategies and plans since 2012 have used state-wide targets for reduction in road trauma. None of the documents reviewed by this audit include a target to reduce road trauma in regional New South Wales, where a disproportionate level of road trauma occurs, and which differs greatly from metropolitan New South Wales in many ways.

TfNSW advised the audit that ‘the reason for a single target is because caution is required when comparing relatively low numbers of fatalities in different areas with low populations. The primary objective is to reduce actual numbers of deaths…and that…the State targets apply across the entire state including regional NSW’.

TfNSW also stated that ‘the existing approach to trauma reduction targets in New South Wales aligns with the approach adopted by other jurisdictions, including internationally, which is to design road safety strategic plans around the jurisdictional accountability for management of safety systems at the National, State or local government level’. Chapter 4 provides further details of the road safety responsibilities of the different jurisdictional levels.

There are potentially valid reasons for the existing approach as articulated by TfNSW to road trauma reduction targets. However, in practice, it is possible for New South Wales to meet a single state-wide road trauma reduction target without actually reducing road trauma in regional areas. This is because of the higher population in metropolitan areas.

The fact is that the proportion of fatalities on regional roads has not reduced since 2012, despite a long-term reduction in the total number of deaths on the state’s roads between 2012–2021. A target to reduce road trauma in regional New South Wales could sharpen TfNSW’s focus on targeting funding and its efforts towards areas of greatest risk or provide more detailed insights on progress in reducing road trauma and fatalities in the geographic areas most represented in the state’s road toll.

TfNSW has not developed a road safety implementation plan specific to regional New South Wales

TfNSW has acknowledged that there is a disproportionate amount of road trauma on regional roads in the NSW Road Safety Strategy 2012–2021, the NSW Road Safety Plan 2021, and the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026. 

TfNSW has also previously stated in response to media enquiries that ‘We know we need a sustained focus on improving safety in regional areas to achieve our new road safety targets’.

NSW Government’s policy on road safety is clear. However, there is no implementation plan that is focused on identifying and addressing the unique characteristics (crash types, behavioural factors and road users) specific to regional areas. This is despite TfNSW acknowledging that regional areas are an on-going problem due to region-specific issues.

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 (and prior plans), list priority actions and initiatives, some of which are targeted at regional areas such as the Safer Roads program, vehicle safety technology upgrades and the Local Government Road Safety Program.

TfNSW advised the audit that additional emphasis is placed on regional New South Wales through a specific strategic priority area for ‘creating safer country roads’. The strategic priority area referred to is actually ‘creating safer country and urban places’ and is not wholly dedicated to regional NSW but applies to metropolitan areas as well. The objective of this priority is to reduce fatalities on country roads and injuries in urban environments. This priority area focuses on the contrasting challenges of urban areas to regional roads, the ‘mix of different road users in the same environment’ and the need to ‘design roads and places to be shared and safe for everyone’.

Good strategy effectively targets risk. A single broad strategic approach across the network, as in the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026, is unlikely to be nuanced enough to target specific risks. Moreover, regional-specific factors such as varying population densities, road infrastructure, travel patterns, and levels of enforcement that are factors in defining strategies and targets are not accurately considered in the current NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026.

TfNSW has acknowledged that plans are not produced based on specific geographic areas. This is because ‘all road safety plans and strategies are designed around the jurisdictions and their management accountability and systems at the State or National government level. At a local government level, road safety outcomes should be reflected in strategic plans for local councils’.

The audit has highlighted a gap in road safety planning and implementation for regional areas and it is not clear how local government strategic plans can fill this gap.

Schedule 1 of the Transport Administration Act 1988, states that TfNSW has a general function for planning and policy for the road network. The planning and policy function includes advice, assistance and recommendations to the Minister in connection with the development of policy for promoting road safety.

Section 7(4) of the Roads Act 1993 states that the council of a local government area is the roads authority for all public roads within the area, other than any freeway or Crown road, and any public road for which some other public authority is declared by the regulations to be the roads authority.

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 plan states that TfNSW ‘will support local government to embed road safety in business as usual’ but does not reference the role of strategic plans from local councils.

Moreover, an approach that relies on individual strategic plans from local councils does not provide the public with a consolidated perspective on how a cross-regional problem will be resolved.

During this audit, TfNSW has acknowledged that there may be merit in publishing a separate document that outlines the specific NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 measures that will be delivered to improve regional road safety. This could be effective if it contained performance measures, risk metrics and detailed how road safety initiatives addressed specific road safety issues in regional NSW.

TfNSW’s targets for the reduction of fatalities and serious injuries do not consider factors such as population density

TfNSW’s road safety targets are based on raw numbers and do not consider factors such as population density, mobility, and vehicle ownership. Proportional targets of this sort can provide another option in showing progress across time and allowing for variations in population and economic growth especially measured across regions, as illustrated in Chapter 1.

The National Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 has adopted per capita rates to accompany its road trauma reduction targets because they are a better option to allow for variations in ‘population growth between jurisdictions, regions, age groups and road user groups’.

However, TfNSW advised the audit that its focus is on reducing the actual number of deaths and serious injuries not just the per capita rate. It advised that rates are difficult for the public to understand and may be difficult to accurately measure as rates may vary over time.

It has also stated that reductions on a per population basis may be due to demographic growth and not a reduction in the actual amount of road trauma. TfNSW also contends that comparing rates or targets across regions can be misleading if regional-specific factors such as varying population densities, road infrastructure, travel patterns, and levels of enforcement are not accurately considered in the analysis.

As a result, TfNSW’s targets are all raw numbers and do not take into account population size, despite the fact that TfNSW does report on a proportional basis (or ‘rate reporting’) in one internal and three public reports.

The Local Government Road Safety Program was established in 1992 to assist councils with safety on local roads

Section 7(4) of the Roads Act 1993 states that the council of a local government area is the roads authority for all public roads within the area, other than any freeway or Crown road, and any public road for which some other public authority is declared by the regulations to be the roads authority.

Under Schedule 1 Part 2 clause 4(1)(c) of the Transport Administration Act 1988, TfNSW has a statutory role to provide advice and assistance to local councils for the improvement of road safety. The Local Government Road Safety Program (LGRSP) was created to assist councils in delivering locally based road safety initiatives within their communities. The LGRSP uses the Safe Systems approach to road safety in the development of all local road safety projects.

TfNSW’s guidelines for the LGRSP 2022–23 state that ‘local councils are well placed to plan, implement and deliver road safety projects relevant to their communities’.

The focus of the LGRSP is:

• at the LGA-level rather than broader regional approaches
• on behavioural and education campaigns, while road safety infrastructure treatments are managed through other state and federal programs (noting though that the LGRSP allows some support for such programs).

The LGRSP provides for the employment of road safety officers (RSOs), local Road Safety Action Plans and ongoing engagement with staff in TfNSW’s Centre for Road Safety and Regional and Outer Metropolitan operating division. The Regional and Outer Metropolitan representatives are the key contact for councils and RSOs in all aspects of the LGRSP.

Employing a RSO is a joint process involving both TfNSW and the council. TfNSW informed the audit that the standard RSO role description includes a preference for tertiary qualifications in behavioural sciences, education, health promotion, marketing, communications, sciences, or a related discipline. Alternatively, extensive relevant experience may be considered. Where appointed, the role of the RSO is to:

• plan, develop and implement local road safety projects and action plans
• support state-wide strategies and programs and deliver to local communities
• regularly report on and evaluate projects/activities in action plans.

The RSO is expected to develop and implement educational and behavioural projects. The role can support engineering, enforcement, funding activities, data analysis and research. Funding is also available to support road safety projects to address identified issues within the LGA. A council that does not employ an RSO can still apply for road safety project funding, but this is capped at 50% of the project cost.

TfNSW advised the audit that the purpose of council’s Road Safety Action Plans is to define local road safety activities and projects and outline how councils plan to address the road safety problems and issues relevant to their LGA. This includes a requirement to undertake statistical analysis to identify road safety issues in the development of their local plans. However, in the absence of a specific implementation plan that draws together information from across regional NSW, TfNSW is unable to support councils’ local plans or determine their efficacy.

TfNSW advised that local projects are developed to target problems identified by councils and it supports participating councils by overseeing project delivery, supporting grant and funding applications, and providing data.

TfNSW also advised that it reviews Local Road Safety Action Plans to assess alignment of projects with local road safety problems and issues. TfNSW also reviews council nominated projects to ensure they are appropriate and consistent with the LGRSP Guidelines.

However, the audit team has seen no evidence that TfNSW is consolidating local level plans to identify issues and strategies for regional New South Wales, or that it is leveraging the information provided by local councils to inform management decisions about improving regional road safety outcomes. TfNSW advised that audit that it would not expect such an approach ‘to ladder up to the regional or state level, where the key road safety problems and interventions are well-known’.

TfNSW relies on councils to address local road safety issues through the LGRSP but only 52% of regional councils participate in the program

TfNSW has pointed to a ‘jurisdictional accountability for management of safety systems at the National, State or local government level’ without specifying how this applies to specific issues in regional NSW. Instead, TfNSW advised the audit that at a local government level, road safety outcomes should be reflected in strategic plans for local councils. The LGRSP has been established to support this.

However, of the 92 local councils in regional New South Wales, 48 of them (or 52.2%) participated in the Local Government Road Safety Program in 2022–23. The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 defines participation as access to a road safety officer, road safety planning and integration in local communities.

Of the 48 participating councils, six currently have vacant RSO roles and no local road safety plans. A further two councils participated in a single project in 2022–23 but did not join the LGRSP.

TfNSW advised the audit that, in comparison, 27 out of 32 (84%) of Sydney metropolitan LGAs participated in the program.

This low level of involvement in regional LGAs has persisted since 2017–18 despite the funding advantages resulting from participation in the LGRSP and appointing an RSO. TfNSW also stated that it is aware of the shortfall in regional council involvement with the LGRSP but notes that the program is voluntary.

TfNSW advised that staff in the Centre for Road Safety and the Regional and Outer Metropolitan Division regularly meet with road safety officers and communicate as required. The Regional and Outer Metropolitan division in TfNSW ‘intermittently checks whether a non-participating council wishes to join’. However, without greater participation it is difficult for TfNSW to depend on local council strategic plans to reflect road safety outcomes.

Further, the regional councils interviewed by the audit team expressed concerns with TfNSW’s engagement when addressing their issues relating to road safety. Most councils highlighted close working relationships at the local level and on traffic committees but felt that when issues were handled from a distance, the understanding of local issues and responsiveness declined.

TfNSW needs to engage more proactively with local councils to understand and address local and regional specific issues

The audit team met with eight councils in regional areas over the course of the audit. This was not intended to be a representative sample. Five were small shire councils with large road networks, much of it unsealed, but relatively small populations. The remainder were municipal councils with populations of more than 40,000. Whilst the audit team only met with a small number of councils there were some consistent themes arising from these conversations, and these are presented in Exhibit 15, below. The audit team also reviewed submissions made by local councils to the parliamentary inquiries by the NSW Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety (Staysafe Committee) on:

• speed limits and road safety in regional NSW (December 2022)
• reducing trauma on local roads in New South Wales (July 2021).

TfNSW has outstanding requests for speed limit reviews from regional councils for 2021–22

Councils in regional areas have requested 174 speed limit reviews since 2018. TfNSW reported that 49.7% of these have been accepted and 42.5% have been rejected. Of the remaining 7.8% of requests, 3.6% have been deferred and the rest have been withdrawn or are currently underway.

In July 2023 TfNSW released a new NSW Speed Zoning Standard to enable ‘greater consistency of speed zoning across NSW, and greater alignment of speed settings with the surrounding environments’.

The new Standard requires TfNSW to conduct a preliminary review and notify the local council within four months of receiving a speed limit review request or identifying a need. Thereafter, there is no time limit imposed on TfNSW to complete the remainder of the review process.

At the time of writing, TfNSW reported that there are seven unresolved speed limit review requests from councils in regional NSW. Three of these date from 2021–22 and the remaining four are from 2022–23.

Delays in responding to requests for speed reviews were an area that concerned several of the councils interviewed by the audit team, as well as those that engaged with the NSW Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety (Staysafe Committee) Inquiry into speed limits and road safety in regional NSW (December 2022).

TfNSW advised the audit that, on occasion, complexity and the requirement to travel hundreds of kilometres to the road in question may cause delays in completion.

The audit team has not reviewed the merits of any of these requests for speed limit reviews, nor the outcome of decisions made by TfNSW.

However, it is worth noting that reductions in speed limits could impact on the movement of road freight by commercial operators. TfNSW has freight policy within its remit and has acknowledged that NSW will struggle to meet the increasing demand for freight movements unless rail plays a larger role in the movement of freight.

Therefore, TfNSW needs to ensure the independence of decision makers reviewing applications for speed limit reviews to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest. The audit has not evaluated the independence of decision makers and does not intend to question the independence of decision-makers, but to signal the importance of providing such assurance to stakeholders in the process.

TfNSW has not updated the Local Government Road Safety Program since 2014, despite the NSW Government committing to do so in 2021

In the July 2021 ‘Inquiry into Reducing Trauma on Local Roads in New South Wales’, NSW Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety (Staysafe Committee) found that, despite being a useful program with success in reducing trauma on local roads, the program:

• has not changed in its format or focus since its inception
• is underfunded and inadequately supported by TfNSW
• may no longer be meeting the current needs of local government.

The Staysafe Committee recommended that the NSW Government conduct a review of the objectives, funding levels, guidelines and duration of the Local Government Road Safety Program. In December 2021, the then NSW Government accepted this recommendation.

TfNSW advised the audit that the Local Government Road Safety Program was reviewed by the Australian Roads Research Board, a consulting firm, in 2008 with a pilot conducted in 2010–11 to test the recommendations arising from this review. In July 2014, TfNSW implemented a revised delivery model in response to the review and pilot. 

In April 2022, the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 committed to reviewing and expanding the LGRSP ‘to ensure every council has access to a Road Safety Officer to better resource their road safety planning and integration in their local communities’. 

Other objectives include:

• increased local council participation in the program
• funding resources are used to effectively incorporate road safety targets in local strategic planning processes
• better enablement of partnerships between councils and their local communities. 

However, by April 2023, this action had not progressed, was labelled ‘At Risk’ and was escalated to the Community Road Safety Fund (CRSF) Governance Committee for a resolution. The reason provided to the CRSF Governance Committee for the lack of progress was that ‘a rethink of the scope of works is underway to ensure the most complete delivery of this initiative’. The papers for the May 2023 CRSF Governance Committee included a reference to the escalation but there was no record of any action taken to mitigate the risk. 

TfNSW has implemented measures to reduce road trauma across the state but has not assessed the effectiveness of these initiatives in reducing road trauma in regional New South Wales

TfNSW has implemented initiatives to reduce road trauma across New South Wales. Investment decisions have been supported by an evidence-base that includes:

• community and stakeholder consultation
• trauma analysis
• research of best practice countermeasures
• modelling of the plan initiatives, including lives saved and economic savings.

Since 2017, TfNSW has engaged the Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) to produce baseline models of road trauma trends that could be used to predict likely trends in New South Wales. This was done by assessing research and data from several countries and Australian jurisdictions where similar initiatives have been employed. 

The results were then used to predict the impact of these trends on road trauma, socio-demographic and economic variables and expenditure data in New South Wales. The estimated impacts arising from this research was used to support the investment case for new road safety plans and additional interventions.

To further support the development of the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026, TfNSW also undertook its own modelling of countermeasures necessary to achieve the 2030 trauma reduction targets and the 2050 zero trauma target.

However, TfNSW has not undertaken an integrated assessment of the impact of its own initiatives on road trauma reductions. TfNSW has undertaken some evaluations of specific initiatives, but these have been as stand-alone evaluations which are not integrated across the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 and do not report on the effectiveness of the plan as a whole in reducing road trauma in regional New South Wales.

TfNSW has carried out, or commissioned, at least 17 evaluations of specific road safety initiatives since 2013. However, it is unable to demonstrate the degree to which its initiatives, as a whole, have prevented fatalities and serious injuries. Exhibit 16, below, provides an overview of the key evaluations undertaken by TfNSW.

Of the 17 completed evaluations undertaken:

• 6 (35%) provide an assessment as to the impact of specific initiatives on road trauma reduction
• 2 (12%) provide an assessment of the impact of a specific initiative on road trauma in regional NSW
• 5 (29%) were research reports rather than evaluations.

There is no systematic and integrated analysis of the combined impact or contribution of initiatives and interventions in New South Wales road safety strategies and plans since 2012 on road trauma reduction outcomes in regional New South Wales.

TfNSW has undertaken post implementation reviews and evaluations for advertising and capability development campaigns. However, as above, these reviews did not evaluate the impact on road trauma reduction.³

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 consists of 13 major initiatives, called priority actions. Each priority action has a project summary which details objectives, resourcing, milestones and other details. None of the project summaries include specific road trauma reduction targets or key performance indicators.

Only the Towards Zero Safer Roads Program (which is not listed as a priority action) gives a measure of how much its road safety infrastructure and speed management improvements are expected to contribute to the road trauma reduction target in the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026. These activities are expected to contribute to 60% the total 2026 road trauma reduction target. To date, there is no evidence of whether these road safety infrastructure and speed management improvements are on track to achieve this goal.

The absence of targets makes it difficult to determine the impact on road trauma. This, in turn, makes it difficult to measure the impact of the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 as a whole.

TfNSW’s Safety Performance Indicators measure risk factors, but less than a third are being measured and reported

TfNSW defined 16 Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) in the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 as ‘key measures of risk in the road system, what we need the road system to look like—across road users, roads, vehicles and travel speeds—to create safe mobility for customers’.

The SPIs and the linked focus areas for each are shown in Exhibit 17, below.

Only six out of 16 (31%) of TfNSW’s road safety performance indicators are specific to regional New South Wales although others apply to regional and metropolitan roads alike. Only one performance indicator (measuring compliance with speed limits on regional roads) is currently reported.

TfNSW has not provided timelines on when all safety performance indicators will be measured or when targets will be set noting that these are a work in progress within the timeframe of the current NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026.

The SPIs have been rolled out inconsistently across the 12 priority programs of the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026.⁴ Four of the priority programs do not use any SPIs. These four programs are to:

• review and expand Local Government Road Safety Program
• develop an online Towards Zero Collaboration Hub for councils
• deliver the online Learner Education and Testing Platform
• deliver a new online NSW Road Safety Education Centre.

TfNSW advised the audit that targets will be set for the SPIs but, to date, none have been and TfNSW has not provided any information about when this might occur. 

TfNSW’s annual road safety reports do not adequately address road trauma issues in regional New South Wales

TfNSW’s submission to the NSW Parliament’s Staysafe Committee’s inquiry into speed limits and road safety in regional New South Wales (2022–23) included information on several regional-specific issues. This submission is the only substantiative document relating to regional New South Wales that TfNSW has provided to the audit team.

Other documentation reviewed by the audit team, including strategies and action plans, do not effectively address the magnitude of the road trauma challenge by regions and LGAs over time. Nor do they reveal what TfNSW and its partner agencies (NSW Police Force, NSW Health etc) are doing to address regional-specific ‘hot spots’, progress that is being made, and how they are planning to address residual risks.

TfNSW provides annual road safety progress reports to Parliament. Each progress report is an overview of all initiatives and programs delivered to improve road safety through the Community Road Safety Fund.

The progress reports highlight some major trends impacting on road safety statistics. These trends include:

• changes in population
• ageing population
• increases in the number of vehicles registered
• increases in economic activity (and associated impacts of COVID-19)
• increases in the freight task (road vs. road and heavy vehicles vs. light vehicles), which is linked to workplace health and safety
• changes in travel patterns.

However, the audit team has not seen any analysis in these reports of the impacts of these trends on road trauma in regional areas.

The impact of safety initiatives for heavy vehicles in regional areas is not measured

Heavy vehicles (defined by TfNSW as heavy rigid and articulated trucks) represented only 2.2% of registered motor vehicles in New South Wales in 2021, but were involved in 17% of fatalities on NSW roads between 2018 and 2022.

Between 2018–2022, the number of heavy vehicle-related fatalities on regional roads reduced from 18 in 2018 to 16 in 2022.

However, in the year to 13 July 2023 there was a 45.4% increase in heavy vehicle-related fatalities on roads in regional NSW compared to the average of the past three years.

TfNSW’s initiatives for addressing the risks of heavy vehicle-related fatalities include:

• advocating the mandatory introduction of new technologies in all new heavy vehicles
• promoting the adoption of minimum requirements for blind spots, underruns, lane departure and collision warnings
• educating all road users on safe interactions around heavy vehicles and their unique driving factors.

TfNSW has not measured the impact of these initiatives on heavy vehicle-related road trauma. The annual NSW Road Safety Progress Reports provide details on recent initiatives but it does not report on their impact.

The impact of safety initiatives on most at-risk road users in regional areas is not measured

TfNSW Annual Progress Reports detail initiatives with at-risk road users, including Aboriginal people, pedestrians, school children, and heavy vehicles.

However, the focus is on reporting on specific initiatives and not on measuring impacts on particular vulnerable populations, nor any regional areas. Further, the only assessment that measured the impact of specific initiatives on road trauma was on pedestrian safety, and that assessment did not provide any information on the impact on pedestrian safety in regional NSW.

Exhibit 18, below, provides details on issues pertinent to three groups of at-risk road users.

TfNSW uses a range of government data to support decision-making and to report progress against state-wide targets

TfNSW uses data from multiple other government agencies in addition to its own data on licensing and registration from the Driver and Vehicle System (DRIVES) and the Vehicle Specification Database. Government data sources used by TfNSW are shown in Exhibit 19, below:

TfNSW has started using data from sources outside government for proactive decision-making on road improvements and predictive analytics

TfNSW is beginning to use data from sources outside the government to design, prioritise or evaluate its approach to road safety. It has begun to use data from the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) which rates the safety of roads across NSW. This data reports risk factors for 18,000 km of state managed roads.

AusRAP uses star ratings to measure the inherent safety of road infrastructure including features that prevent and/or reduce the severity of crashes. This involves measurement of 60 risk attributes for every 100m of road including:

• safety features such as dual lane divided carriageways, good line marking and wide lanes
• risk factors such as:
  • single lanes and undivided roads
  • poor line markings
  • trees, poles, and steep embankments close to the edge of the road.

Use of AusRAP is intended to shift decision-making in TfNSW to a more predictive approach based on risk factors to identify potential crash locations. The current approach is to treat roads after crashes have occurred. The data from AusRAP is being used by TfNSW to inform priority sections of roads across NSW to target for upgrades through the NSW Safer Roads Program.

TfNSW is in the early stages of considering using additional data sources for its road safety analytics functions. The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 lists two initiatives designed to expand its data sources.

One initiative involves a proof of concept/pilot collaborating with TfNSW’s data scientists using existing crash data and vehicle telematics data to predict future trauma. Telematics data can be used to determine correlations between driver actions such as swerving and excessive braking and trauma suffered.

The other initiative involves the development of a Road Safety Research Fund to engage with research bodies and academia for more innovative road safety research.

There is evidence, both from within Australia and overseas, that the use of external data can improve the analysis of road trauma.

In its modelling work for TfNSW, the Monash University Accident Research Centre used population growth, socio-demographic and economic data in its road safety models. MUARC found that these factors impact road trauma trends due to increased travel exposure and economic activity.

Another recent MUARC study found that existing methods of determining speed as a cause, mainly through police reports, underestimated the extent of speeding-related crashes. The use of car-based technology such as GPS is promising but needs to be more widely used to fulfil its promise as a source of network-wide data.

The Swedish Transport Administration agency (Trafikverket) has been analysing external factors since 2020 to improve the interpretation of road trauma data. This analysis includes external data such as traffic volumes and flow, traffic mix including new types of vehicles, and the impact of socio-economic features such as unemployment, economic growth and the age profile of road users.

The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has been trialling the use of data from connected vehicles to improve data on the state of the road network and to measure ‘near-accident data’. The Ministry is using this data to provide more proactive reporting of risks and to increase the types of data it uses to manage road safety.

This audit has not determined whether these practices have resulted in improved road safety outcomes. 

TfNSW also uses data from modelling and research that is commissioned from academic institutions to support strategy development and refinement of reporting. However, the department has no plans at this time to investigate the use of other data sources that may enable more nuanced data insights for management decisions about road safety.

TfNSW has effective and documented procedures for validating and securing data

TfNSW uses documented procedures to improve the accuracy of data provided by the NSW Police Force. TfNSW matches the data from the NSW Police Force with data from NSW Health and assesses the accuracy of the data by examining other factors about the crash including:

• location data
• speed limits and school zones
• traffic user type and vehicle details/functions
• Aboriginality of individuals involved in the crash
• use of restraints, helmet, airbags.

TfNSW corrects errors or omissions in the data, if possible, using the other data sources listed above.

The security of this data is governed by a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between TfNSW and the NSW Police Force. Clause 6.2 of the MoU states that the parties comply with the Commonwealth Protective Security Policy Framework only to the extent that it aligns with the NSW Information Classification, Labelling and Handling Guidelines in relation to the use and disclosure of any Confidential Information obtained under this MoU.

No issues relating to the security of the information have been reported to the CRSF Governance Committee, which provides governance and assurance over the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 and the Community Road Safety Fund.

Data for serious injuries cannot always be matched to a Police record as the police may not have attended an incident where no-one died. In this case, the data is subject to the protocols of the Health Linkage project which was established in 2013. The protocol details processes for the use of NSW Health data including:

• data/research governance
• ethics considerations and committees
• access controls
• confidentiality and privacy
• data storage and retention
• risk management.

Data from NSW Health that is received under the Health Linkage project undergoes a validation and matching process before it is added to the crash data held by TfNSW. The process includes validating the data twice once all the extracts have been received from the different agencies providing data to identify and correct any errors. Both validation steps use data administrators from the Centre for Road Safety in TfNSW.

The security of data handled under the NSW Health linkage project is subject to existing TfNSW Information Technology standards and building security rules.

The protocol also states that it ensures all researchers:

• are aware of their responsibilities in relation to data security and usage in their training
• sign an agreement to conduct their research ethically and according to project procedures and conditions of approval.

No risks or issues relating to data validation or security have been raised in the progress reports for:

• the NSW Road Safety Plan 2021 (which date back to April 2020)
• NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 (from April 2022 to May 2023)
• the minutes of the Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee (since January 2022).

TfNSW is responsible for managing road safety outcomes across NSW, including supporting local government

Schedule 1 of the Transport Administration Act 1988 states that TfNSW has a general function for planning and policy for the road network. The planning and policy function includes advice, assistance, and recommendations to the Minister in connection with the development of policy for promoting road safety.

Specifically, Part 2 clause 4 of Schedule 1 of the Transport Administration Act 1988 provides in relation to ‘Road safety, road travel efficiency and road traffic management’:

1. TfNSW may:
   1. conduct testing, research and investigations in connection with promoting or improving road safety, road travel efficiency and road traffic management, and
   2. develop and implement programs, projects, strategies and campaigns for promoting or improving road safety, road travel efficiency and road traffic management, and
   3. provide advice and assistance to public and local authorities for the promotion or improvement of road safety, road travel efficiency and road traffic management.
2. In this clause, road safety refers to safety in connection with roads, road vehicles and all aspects of road usage.

Section 7(4) of the Roads Act 1993 states that the council of a local government area is the roads authority for all public roads within the area, other than any freeway or Crown road, and any public road for which some other public authority is declared by the regulations to be the roads authority.

As discussed in detail in Chapter 2, TfNSW established the LGRSP to assist councils with safety on local roads. However, only 52% of local councils in regional New South Wales currently participate in the LGRSP compared to 84% of metropolitan councils. TfNSW advised the audit that it is aware of the relatively low participation rates but notes that the program is voluntary and attempts at increasing participation have been intermittent. The audit team identified that local council participation in regional New South Wales has not increased since 2017 – that is, in the six years to 2023 – and therefore the program is at risk of being ineffective as a support measure.

TfNSW’s position on developing targets and specific strategies for regional New South Wales arises from the concept of jurisdictional accountability

TfNSW advised the audit that it ‘designs road safety strategic plans around the jurisdictional accountability for management of safety systems at the National, State or local government level’. TfNSW notes the jurisdictional accountability approach aligns with that adopted by other jurisdictions, including internationally.

In Australia’s federal system, government responsibilities for road safety vary across jurisdictions. However, there is a complex structure of responsibilities for road safety which is not as clear cut as TfNSW’s use of the term ‘jurisdictional accountability’ might suggest.

Exhibit 20 below, summarises the main responsibilities across the jurisdictional levels with respect to road safety in Australia.

Whilst some responsibilities for road safety are potentially duplicated across three levels of government, there are also potential gaps. Specifically:

• accountabilities for regional areas are not precisely defined
• there is substantial dependence on local government for achieving road safety outcomes, but their participation rates in TfNSW’s Local Government Road Safety Program are relatively low in regional New South Wales
• successful implementation of TfNSW’s strategies is dependent on a number of government agencies that have their own operational priorities.

TfNSW must work more proactively with other agencies to achieve its goals

TfNSW needs to work in partnership with other agencies (especially the NSW Police Force and NSW Heath) and local councils to achieve the state-wide trauma reduction targets. When these agencies face other operational challenges like the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this may impact road safety outcomes.

Exhibit 21, below, gives an indication of the extent of the collaboration required, listing agencies and entities spanning national, state and local tiers of government and including the private sector.

TfNSW has a range of memoranda of understanding used to manage these relationships and uses the Community Road Safety Fund to support partners in fulfilling their roles. It also uses the CRSF Governance Committee and Road Safety Advisory Council to support this process.

However, TfNSW does not have a framework and process by which it proactively manages the risks associated with many partners with multiple roles that contribute to road safety outcomes. This includes an assessment of the potential impact on road trauma reduction targets where a partner misses targets, milestone dates or other requirements.

TfNSW advises the audit that ‘the systems and processes of external agencies in their management of their areas of responsibility in road safety is the responsibility of each individual agency’.

TfNSW’s partnership with the NSW Police Force is critical to enforcing safety initiatives focused on behavioural change

TfNSW provides additional funding to the NSW Police Force for enhanced enforcement operations through the Community Road Safety Fund. This funding is for state-wide and regional operations in addition to baseline hours. Although the NSW Police Force plays a broad role in enforcing road safety laws, under the enhanced enforcement operations program, the sole target is for 200,000 mobile drug tests per year.

This target was not met in 2021, 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. The risk was first raised to the Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee in August 2022. The monthly target was exceeded in April 2023.

TfNSW advised the audit that other operational priorities such as the response to COVID-19 have reduced the capacity of the NSW Police Force to meet this target.

TfNSW has not measured the impact on road trauma from the delays in achieving this target.

Specific road safety initiatives targeted to regional areas have not been implemented or expanded 

The Automated Enforcement Strategy offers relatively little enforcement in regional areas

One of the initiatives in the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 was the implementation of the Automated Enforcement Strategy which came into effect in November 2022. Automated enforcement is the use of technology, particularly cameras, to capture and record violations of road rules and its associated data. Automated enforcement supplements road safety enforcement conducted by the NSW Police Force and is used to address speeding, red-light running, illegal mobile phone use, unregistered driving and to assist with fatigue compliance among heavy vehicle drivers.

This program is intended to provide a framework for the management of automated enforcement programs in New South Wales, to assist innovation in this space, and to help reduce road trauma. Further details on this program can be found in Appendix two.

However, in New South Wales, the Automated Enforcement Strategy has a strong metropolitan focus with the majority of red light and fixed speed cameras being located in metropolitan areas, as illustrated in Exhibit 22, below.

As Exhibit 22 shows, average speed cameras are the only camera type overwhelmingly located in regional areas. These cameras apply to heavy vehicles only and are positioned on major freight routes, which are usually outside built up areas. The distances between cameras can be as short as one km (Sydney Harbour Tunnel)⁶ or as long 94 km (Newell Highway) depending on the location. To date, New South Wales is the only jurisdiction in Australia that limits the use point-to-point cameras to heavy vehicles alone.

In comparison, red light cameras and fixed speed cameras, which make up 89% of the cameras employed in New South Wales (310 out of 350 cameras), are mostly located in metropolitan areas.

Another initiative in the Automated Enforcement Strategy is to extend the use of mobile phone detection cameras to identify non-use of seat belts. Non-use of seat belts is twice as prevalent in the deaths of drivers in regional NSW compared to metropolitan areas. TfNSW advised the audit that it is waiting for the passing of the Bill extending the use of cameras to detect non-use of seat belts before rolling out this program.

However, given the relatively low presence of police enforcement in regional New South Wales, the Automated Enforcement Strategy has done little to provide additional enforcement in regional New South Wales.

The resolution of critical risks is not clear despite a documented process for escalation

The NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 uses monthly progress reports to identify risks for individual initiatives. In March 2023, the progress reports introduced a new status for initiatives, ‘At Risk – Escalate to Governance Committee’. The committee referred to is the Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee.

The purpose of this committee is to provide governance and assurance over the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 and Community Road Safety Fund. This includes overseeing implementation and risk management of the initiatives required to achieve road trauma reduction targets.

Since this change occurred in March 2023, nine initiatives with the ‘At Risk – Escalate to Governance Committee’ status have been raised.

The Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee included a risk register in its recent papers. However, the list is incomplete and does not include all escalated risks. For example, three initiatives with this rating in April 2023 were not included on the risk register in May 2023. As a result, it is unclear whether progress has been made on mitigating or resolving these risks or not. 

There is also potential for other risks to not be escalated at all.

Risks associated with the ability to triple mobile speed camera enforcement hours to 21,000 per month have not been raised, let alone escalated since the measure was announced in November 2020 by the then government. This measure was intended to increase the deterrent effect of cameras designed to detect speeding across the network to support the perception of ‘anywhere, anytime’ enforcement.

However, in the 32 months since announcement, the target has been reached only once (January 2022). In 2022 the target was missed by an average of 22% each month and in 2023 is averaging 26.6% below target to date. However, there is no record of a risk being raised in TfNSW’s progress reporting or in the Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee minutes. As this underperformance was not noted as a risk, it is unclear how the initiative proposed to:

• remediate the factors impacting the gaps
• determine how urgently was needed
• measure the impact on road trauma reduction caused by underperformance and delays.

TfNSW advised the audit that ‘various factors, most notably flooding and policy changes relating to signage requirements and visibility requirements for the program, have resulted in fewer enforcement hours delivered than the target of 21,000 hours per month. In June and July 2023, more than 19,000 hours have been delivered per month’.

TfNSW has defined a framework for the governance of the NSW 2026 Road Safety Action Plan but does not have a consolidated management plan

TfNSW developed its NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 Governance Framework to support implementation and ways of working across different initiatives. This governance structure provides a three-tier structure, outlining responsibilities, decision making bodies and the process of risk escalation. The three tiers are:

1. project delivery teams for the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 actions/initiatives
2. program level steering committees
3. NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 and Community Road Safety Fund Governance Committee.

This governance structure also provides guidelines for how TfNSW is to structure programs under the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026, which are listed in Appendix two. It provides details about roles, responsibilities, and escalations.

All priority programs under the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 are following this guidance and also have an individual program plan that defines objectives, scope, outcomes, milestones, roles, KPIs and SPIs and evaluation requirements.

However, TfNSW has not created a consolidated management plan that brings together the individual plans from the priority programs. Consolidation could assist in understand dependencies between the priorities and how they impact on schedules, milestones, and resourcing.

There is also no program-wide schedule or timeline for the NSW Road Safety Action Plan 2022–2026 that tracks key milestones for priority programs and their inter-relationships. Monthly progress reporting provides details on progress on risks and achievements. However, without a schedule, there are no insights as to the impact a delay can have on achieving milestones in the Plan.

There is no consolidated, public reporting on total road safety funding allocated to regional New South Wales

Although Annual Progress Reports on road safety provide an annual account of expenditure from the Community Road Safety Fund, TfNSW does not publicly report on road safety funding allocated to regional New South Wales each year. Information on road safety funding may be found in various sources including NSW Budget papers, the CRSF annual progress reports, and media announcements.

TfNSW advised the audit that the estimated amounts were $700 million in 2021–22 and $633 million in 2022–23, which included contributions made by the Australian Government.

TfNSW also advised that, of the $700 million in funding in 2021–22, $411 million (or 58.7%) was directed to regional New South Wales.

Exhibit 23, below, shows the sources of direct, matched, and external funding for New South Wales road safety programs and how they are directed to the Community Road Safety Fund or to road safety infrastructure projects on state and local roads.⁷