LG Stars

WALGA RoadWise has partnered with the Western Australian Centre for Road Safety Research (WACRSR) at the University of Western Australia to develop a tailor-made Safety Ratings Tool for Local Governments, LG Stars.

With funding from the Office of Road Safety, the tool provides Local Governments with an easy-to-use, and cost-effective method to assess the safety of the roads they manage.

LG Stars is a tool that will provide Local Governments with an assessment and understanding of the safety standard of local roads. This will assist and support the inclusion of road safety considerations in long-term works programs and investment decisions.

While several safety rating systems are currently in use throughout Australia, such as the Australian Road Assessment Programme (AusRAP), the Australian National Risk Assessment Model (ANRAM), the Infrastructure Risk Rating (IRR) tool, and the AustRoads Road Stereotype tool, these tools were not specifically designed to cater to the unique context of Local Governments.

Benefits

  • Cost effective - The tool will be provided to WA Local Governments free of charge. Using the tool will require some investment of staff time.
  • Network Snapshot - When conducted across all Local Government roads, the tool provides a valuable overview of the safety of the entire local road network.
  • Solutions - Based on inputs about the attributes of each road segment, the tool will identify possible road engineering treatments to improve safety.
  • Justify Decisions - By using a process to evaluate safety, Local Government staff and Elected Members can better respond to requests or queries for and about investments.
  • Prioritisation - The tool will provide road safety data from across the Local Government’s network that will help prioritise works and investment.

How to use the tool

Available in both electronic and paper form, the following steps highlight how to use the tool:

  1. Identify the road type being reviewed.
  2. Assess road characteristics against the cross-sections and attributes table.
  3. Mark the appropriate column for each attribute.
  4. Evaluate all road attributes listed in the table applicable to that road type.
  5. Total the number of marks for each star rating.
  6. Assign a star rating based on the column with the highest number of marks.
  7. Save checklist for each road and start the process again for the next road or segment of road.
  8. Consider improvements based on improving the star rating from a network perspective.

Access the tool

Click on the below link to access the online version.

LG STARS - SAFETY RATINGS TOOL

An offline version of the tool and associated documents can be downloaded from the following links:

A recording of the LG Stars - Informational Briefing presentation giving an overview of the tool is available on the WALGA YouTube channel.

RoadWise Councils can contact their Road Safety Advisor for more information and how your Local Government can utilise it to improve the safety of your road network.

Development partners