Delivering safer roads: the Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales model

The New South Wales (NSW) Government has identified road safety as one of its key State Plan priorities. The Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales (RTA) has been nominated as the lead agency for this priority. This presented the RTA with an important opportunity to reduce the State’s road toll even further. A new focus was introduced for the RTA to take up the challenges and priorities set by the NSW Government and to provide improved outcomes for communities across the State. RTA’s refocus required every facet of its business to take responsibility for road safety and ensure that road safety related capabilities were developed across the spectrum of its business. To achieve this, numerous initiatives, strategies, and actions were developed and implemented across the organisation. Under this new approach, road safety became an important driver for all RTA managers. In order to bring about change, RTA needed to change the processes used in the development of its programs and change some of the systems that support its management. The major impact of these changes was in the way that RTA managed the road network and the infrastructure programs that maintain and develop its network.