Safety is a key priority on all our roads.

Safety is essential to Transurban operations. Safety data on our wholly-owned Australian road assets is produced monthly for review and improvements. Our safety measures in Australia and in the US include:

• daily road safety inspections to identify deficiencies in road delineation, sight distances, lighting, traffic signs and roadmarking reflectivity
  
  
• incident inspections that target defects likely to occur to the drainage structures following heavy rain or inspection of footpaths and guardrails after traffic accidents
  
  
• routine asset inspections that target deficiencies in roadside drainage, roadside furniture, roadside amenities and pavement supporting structures
  
  
• desktop exercises every year and field exercises conducted every three years, and
  
  
• in Australia, we conduct an independent road safety audit every five years as well as site-specific audits any time we change the functionality of the road. We will investigate introducing similar audits for Pocahontas 895.

We independently review tunnel safety systems and practices. Detailed safety reviews were undertaken in FY06 for CityLink and Hills M2 with the CityLink review identifying an opportunity for improvements in evacuation signage (See Enhancing Tunnel Safety Case Study). A review of the M1 (Eastern Distributor) tunnel safety system will be undertaken in FY08.

On Pocahontas 895 in the US, VMS Inc. provides routine and preventive maintenance including landscaping, snow and ice control, pavement management services and bridge inspection services.

In Australia our emergency response teams work provide 24-hour roadside assistance on CityLink and Hills M2—our fully-owned assets.

They are responsible for removing road debris, directing traffic at accident scenes and helping customers who have broken down or are having other difficulties on our roads.

TransLink Operations is contracted to control traffic, incident response and environmental management on CityLink in Victoria. In NSW, Bilfinger Berger Services Australia performs incident response and Transroute provides traffic control room operations on Hills M2.

We use an internationally recognised index for reporting collision information. The Collision Index outlines the number of collisions per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled. Click here for Westlink M7's customer safety data.

Collision index


Collisions refer to an impact that damages a motor vehicle or an incident requiring maintenance. The injury accident is when a person is declared injured at the site of an accident and is taken by ambulance for treatment. The CityLink All Accident Index is where there has been third party damage and incident response teams are required to respond.

All = All accidents per 100,000,000 vehicle kilometres travelled
Injury = Injury accidents per 100,000,000 vehicle kilometres travelled

There were four fatalities on CityLink during FY07 and one fatal accident on Hills M2 during FY07—the first Hills M2 has recorded in 10 years of operation. There were no fatalities on Pocahontas 895.

There is no comparative data from previous years as this was the first year that collisions have been calculated on Hills M2 using this particular collision index methodology. This information will be collected in future years on Pocahontas 895.

Safety improvements

Two main safety improvements were made on the Hills M2 motorway to help reduce collisions and the severity of injuries. The speed limit on Hills M2 was reduced from 100 kilometres per hour westbound to 70 and 80 kilometres per hour in particular sections to support the opening of Lane Cove Tunnel in March 2007.

In March 2007, our safety standards and procedures were successfully executed during the Burnley Tunnel incident.