Austroads has announced the release of its updated Lifeline Risk Indicator Tool, an online resource designed to enhance road connectivity for rural and remote communities.
According to Austroads, maintaining road connections to rural or remote communities is vital, as there is often a lack of alternative connections.
Where there are few road options to communities, lifeline routes ensure communities remain connected when alternative routes are cut off due to natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes.
Austroads Network Operations Program Manager, Amy Naulls, said these connections are both vital and precarious.
“Maintaining access to lifeline routes is vital for the resilience of our remote communities and to support our freight industry,” she said.
“Investing in lifeline routes does not always stack up using a traditional cost-benefit analysis, but Austroads members know these routes are crucial to ensuring safety and support during a crisis.”
The Lifeline Risk Indicator Tool, therefore, was developed as part of a broader initiative to mitigate risks to freight supply chains, particularly in response to disruptions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events.
It features two key assessment modules – Lifeline Route Identification and Risk Assessment and Response Analysis.
The Lifeline Route Identification module ranks routes based on their significance, allowing road managers to establish a comprehensive lifeline route network tailored to their communities’ needs.
Meanwhile, the Risk Assessment and Response Analysis module evaluates routes based on risk score changes following investments, helping identify which routes are most effective at mitigating key risks.
The tool produces three outputs:
- Lifeline Route Identification ranks routes based on the lifeline route identification assessment. This allows road managers to establish a lifeline route network.
- Risk change ranking ranks routes based on the change in risk score following an investment. This allows a road manager to identify the routes where risks can be effectively reduced.
- Non-CBA investment ranking ranks routes where an alternative approach to justifying investment is taken. This ranking is based on a high-level assessment of the economic and social contribution of the routes.
In other news, Victorian Minister for Roads & Road Safety and Ports & Freight, Melissa Horne, will officially open the Alternative Fuel Summit 2024.
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