The National Road Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP) is proud to announce the establishment of the Construction Logistics and Community Safety Australia (CLOCS-A) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The MoU has been in development for three months and formerly establishes a Steering Group which is striving to adapt Transport for London’s (TfL’s) world’s best practice Construction Logistics and Community Safety (CLOCS) to Australia. The MoU illustrates collaborative national leadership in seeking to bring the standard to Australia to underpin the $200 billion worth of transport infrastructure projects across the country.
The MoU Steering Group (SG) consists of National Road Safety Partnership Program, in collaboration with Amy Gillett Foundation, ARTSA Institute (ARTSA-i), Australian Trucking Association, Major Transport Infrastructure Authority, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Transport for NSW, Sydney Metro, Transport for London, Truck Industry Council and Road Safety Victoria.
A key partner of the MoU is TfL who developed CLOCS in 2013 in response to a spate of vulnerable road user (VRU) deaths in London resulting from construction trucks. TfL used a major infrastructure project, €55 billion, as a leaver to improve the safe interactions between construction trucks and VRUs.
Currently Australia’s largest public transport infrastructure projects in Sydney and Melbourne are leading the way with their own adaption of CLOCS leading to slight variances. CLOCS-A would provide a single standard for future projects and contractors to adopt.
As an example of the opportunity:
- in Victoria, the Big Build has resulted in 800 unique trucks appropriately fitted with VRU safety technology to help improve the protection of the community they are operating in.
- At Sydney Metro, Laing O’Rourke shared in a case study and webinar with NRSPP how they have implemented the contract standard based on CLOCS which is helping safely move more than 22,000 plus trucks supplying that one site.
The CLOCS-A MoU is at a similar foundation point as when TfL first started they also used a broad MoU to bring together a diverse range of partners from the heavy vehicle sector, construction industry, developers, peak associations, government, regulators, VRU groups, researchers, and local government. CLOCS is about recognising there is a shared responsibility for road safety and everyone has a role to play. It broke down stakeholder barriers and created a single standard for major projects to adopt.
The SG is striving to do the same and has established a Supporting Partner (SP) tier to broaden the MoU such that it captures the vast range of stakeholders which CLOCS-A will benefit. The MoU already includes seven diverse SPs which includes 3M, Baw Baw Shire Council, Bicycle Queensland, Bingo Industries, Charted Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia, Grasshopper Environmental and Laing O’Rourke.
The MoU builds on the work which NRSPP commenced in 2016 with its first webinar with TfL on CLOCS, a 2018 MoU between NRSPP, TfL and Melbourne Metro, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative (HVSI) CLOCS-A Phase one funding for a Draft CLOCS-A Standard developed by the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) and the national webinar on CLOCS-A in 2020.
In conjunction with finalising the MoU the SG has developed two summary pages of CLOCS-A:
The SG plans on holding a workshop on the 27 May from 11.00am to 1.00pm which will Establish Technical Working Groups to develop and review the CLOCS-A Standards for:
- Construction Vehicle Safety: Chaired by Michael Chan of the Victoria Road Safety
- Driver Training and Competency: Chaired by Dr Marilyn Johnson of Monash University and Amy Gillett Foundation
- Construction Logistics Planning: Chaired by Dr Kim Hassall of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia
- Community Engagement: Chaired by Melissa Weller of the Australian Trucking Association
- Consolidation: Chaired by Michael Holmes of Transport for NSW / Sydney Metro
The MoU is open to any organisations to join, you just need to make a commitment to support CLOCS-A and provide a formal letter to the SG. For more information please contact Jerome Carslake, NRSPP Director who is the current Chair of the SG.