SMEC is party to a five-year agreement with Griffith University and six local councils in South East Queensland to initiate a major research program in road infrastructure management.

Research will be undertaken by the university’s School of Engineering to analyse how factors such as road usage, traffic volumes, environmental conditions and pavement types and structures affect pavement performance. The data will be used to develop a better maintenance regime as well as to improve road pavement rehabilitation and construction technologies. The results will be applied to optimise the timing and selection of road maintenance treatments so that the community is provided with the best possible roads given the limitations of the available road maintenance budget. This will lead to substantial benefits to South East Queensland which is one of Australia’s most rapidly growing regions.

The local councils are providing funding for the research. SMEC is providing its proprietary pavement management software for use by the university team. The software has been widely adopted in Australia and overseas and is under constant development.