South Australia’s recently released Road Safety Strategy to 2031 has set a key performance indicator to improve the Star Rating of the state road network, with a particular focus on high speed, high volume roads.

The Strategy sets out the ambitious 10-year targets to support the government’s long term vision of zero lives lost on state roads by 2050:

• At least a 50% reduction in lives lost; and
• At least a 30% reduction in serious injuries (per capita) on South Australian roads by 2031

Safer design, construction and maintenance of road infrastructure is one of the 9 strategic focus areas of the Strategy which includes a KPI to improve the Star Rating of the state’s road network, with a particular focus on high speed, high volume roads.

In addition, it promotes Star Ratings and ANRAM Risk Scores as key tools road authorities can use to assess the safety of their regional and remote road networks. Data and information from analysis based on Star Ratings, stereotypes or crash risks can be used to inform the development of a Network Safety Plan – a strategic plan used to prioritise safety infrastructure investment where it will have the most impact. They comprise analysis of current risks across the network, mapping the network to identify gaps and desired outcomes and determination of appropriate treatment and prioritisation of treatment across the network. Adopting a network wide approach to road design facilitates the self-explaining roads principle providing for more consistent corridors and optimising investment to reduce crash risk for all road users.