Oral Presentation Public Works Conference 2022
Melton city councils pedestrian and cycling plan. An innovative approach using off the shelf technology. (78992)
The City of Melton is one of Victoria’s designated growth areas and is currently one of Australia’s fastest growing local government areas (LGAs). With a current population of 180,636, the City of Melton’s population is expected to reach over 260,000 by 2031, with an eventual population of nearly 450,000 by 2051. This represents a fast and sustained rate of growth over the next 30 years.
This rapid growth will have significant implications for City of Melton’s transport network. Presently, journeys within the City of Melton, and to and from the LGA, are characterised by a high level of car dependency.
Melton City Council released the “Moving Melton: Integrated Transport Strategy (MM:ITS)” to highlight the key outcomes for the City of Melton to meet the transport challenges of the future and implement an integrated transport system that provides our community with a variety of transport options to get to work, school, shops, and recreation and community facilities.
The MMITS identified several actions to improve active transport, which have been combined in the Pedestrian and Cyclist Plan (PACP). The PACP’s purpose is to analyse and improve existing pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure, and plan for future infrastructure to promote active travel options for all users in the City of Melton.
The key principles for a safe, convenient, and accessible walking and cycling network were identified and summarised into “The 5 C’s” of the PACP shown below.
Innovative use of off-the-shelf technology for field data collection
- Council partnered up with Working for Victoria to collect data for the pathways
- Working for Victoria staff rode bicycles along pathways with video cameras and smart phones using telemetric data recording software, capturing data to identify maintenance issues and improvement opportunities to make our networks more accessible and safer for all users.
- Using the cameras and telemetric recording software, we identified any issues that cause discomfort or discourage someone from using our pathways, such as safety concerns crossing roads, overgrown vegetation, sightline issues and tripping hazards, which are a particular issue for mobility impaired users.
- The video footage is used to visually capture the hazard or improvement opportunity by taking a screenshot and saving that image to the audit record
- The telemetric data, particularly the accelerometer and altimeter data help to identify where a path is particularly steep, has uneven pavement or has a sudden rise or drop (steep pram crossings) which could result in a tripping hazard or issues for mobility impaired users
- The GPS data helps to identify the exact location of the hazard or improvement opportunity for easy recording.
- A map-based auditing system was used to record each hazard or improvement opportunity, which was exported including the description and attached images for tracking and delivery purposes.
- Overall, Working for Victoria staff rode over 300km of Melton’s path network identifying over 3,000 improvement opportunities across the network.
- The records were then split into pre-defined categories and distributed to the relevant departments to ensure the works would be addressed in an appropriate manner.
