Old airstrip and a few sheep paddocks could help shrink Australia’s road toll

The state government will spend $30 million to transform an old airstrip and a few sheep paddocks in central western NSW into a state-of-the-art centre that can test the safety features of heavy vehicles and cars travelling at speed, amid a 60 per cent jump in fatal crashes involving large trucks.

Roads Minister John Graham and Regional Transport Minister Jenny Aitchison said the government would quadruple the size of its Future Mobility Testing and Research Centre at Cudal airport, near Orange, so the site could accommodate heavy vehicles and test at highway speeds the latest car and truck safety features that help drivers avoid crashes.

The government has bought 100 hectares of farmland beside the centre to turn its 1.4-kilometre former runway into a 4.4-kilometre loop track with a skid pad that will allow the centre to expand beyond the testing of passenger vehicles and light trucks at lower speeds, which it has done since 2019.

Transport for NSW will carry out community consultation and finish designing the project before an expected construction start date of 2025.

There were 59 fatal crashes involving heavy vehicles in NSW in the 12 months to July 21, up from 37 over the preceding period, with nearly all the crashes occurring outside of Sydney.

Truck drivers are not at fault in about 80 per cent of fatal crashes involving a truck and car, according to the National Truck Accident Research Centre.  

The former Cudal airport is now home to the Future Mobility Testing and Research Centre.

But driver distraction is the leading cause of all heavy vehicle crashes, including non-fatal ones, accounting for 15.7 per cent of incidents in 2022, mostly in outer regional Australia.

Evan Walker, who runs the Future Mobility Testing and Research Centre, said autonomous emergency braking systems could help address that issue.

“The whole point of the system is to brake the truck faster than the driver could, especially when they miss something, or something jumps out suddenly, or the driver is distracted and sees something later – that system is there, ready to go,” says Walker.

“In the city, you might find that on [more modern cars] – a pedestrian steps out and your car automatically brakes. On regional roads, late at night, they hit kangaroos.”

Testing is carried out using a passenger vehicle and dummy motorcyclist at the Cudal site.

The country’s entire heavy vehicle fleet must have autonomous emergency braking and electronic stability control by February next year under changes to Australian design rules introduced in 2022.

Other driver-assist safety features like lane-keeper technology and blind-spot monitoring, which were designed for passenger vehicles, are also increasingly being fitted into heavy vehicles to make them safer.

The expanded facility at Cudal will allow heavy vehicle manufacturers to test these features on everything up to and including B-Doubles, and also allow for more research and ANCAP testing.

The improved centre is the only government-owned and operated one in the world.

Trucks must have autonomous emergency braking installed by February next year.Credit: Louise Kennerley SMH

“As more advanced safety features on vehicles become available, it’s increasingly important that these are rigorously tested so we can get them into our cars and onto our roads faster,” Minister Aitchison said.

Adam Ritzinger, from the Heavy Vehicle Industry Australia group, said the facility would allow truck manufacturers to test in Australian conditions, taking into account the unique climate, road markings and wildlife.

“Kangaroos specifically – they have a particular movement which is not like any other animal in the world, really,” he said.

“The [safety] systems in North America are looking for moose or bears. In Europe they are looking for deer and elk. In Australia, we have kangaroos that move in a very different way, and the calibration of the sensors and software may need to be tweaked.”

Wildlife accounts for about 3 per cent of crashes involving all types of vehicles on regional roads each year, according to research by the Insurance Australia Group.

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