Tools

Austroads 26 May 2026

Roadside Risk Scoring Tool

Head-On Crashes Heavy Vehicle Occupants Local Streets Main Roads Motorcyclists Other Crashes Passenger Vehicle Occupants Run-Off-Road Crashes Safe Roads & Roadsides Treatments

The Roadside Risk Scoring Tool (RRST) is a practical, repeatable method for assessing and prioritising roadside hazard severity across a road network. It supports road safety engineers in identifying barrier, clear-zone, and treatment priorities aligned with Safe System principles. RRST gives practitioners a defensible numerical risk score for each roadside section, so investment decisions can be ranked transparently and benchmarked across corridors or over time. The methodology draws on the Austroads Guide to Road Design and on international evidence on roadside crash outcomes.

In practice, RRST guides you through a structured, repeatable assessment so options can be compared and prioritised consistently.

  • Screens and ranks options using an evidence-based method.
  • Links each option to indicative cost and expected crash-reduction benefit.
  • Produces defensible outputs for funding submissions and prioritisation.
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Provides evidence-based scoring and ranking to support treatment selection, investment prioritisation, and network-wide decision-making.

Use RRST when you need to:

Use RRST when planning network-wide roadside upgrade programs, prioritising barrier and clear-zone investment, supporting Safe System assessments and audits, or building a baseline risk profile before a multi-year treatment program. It is particularly useful where crash history alone is insufficient, such as on lower-volume rural routes where serious crashes are rare but consequences are high. The outputs feed naturally into Network Safety Plans and Safe System Assessments.

The tool is delivered as a web application. Typical workflow:

RRST is delivered as a web application. The typical workflow is: configure your network in the app and load route or lane segmentation, inspect the route (in person or by video) and record roadside features against the RRST score sheet, validate scores with a second assessor, then export a prioritised treatment list with cost-benefit signposting. The tool produces both a per-section score and a network-level summary suitable for inclusion in funding submissions.

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