New Transport Impact Assessment Guidelines for WA

Transport Impact Assessment Guidelines (August 2016)
Implementation Date Friday 30th September 2016

Purpose
New Transport Impact Assessment (TIA) guidelines have been prepared by the Department of Planning, on behalf of the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAPC), to assist land use planners and transport planning professionals to undertake and assess transport impact assessments of land use development proposals.
In the context of the guidelines, the term ‘development’ is used in the broader sense, covering various aspects of land use development proposals, including scheme amendments, structure plans, subdivision and individual development applications.

Current Status
The TIA guidelines have been updated and were endorsed by the WAPC on 26 July 2016.
The endorsed TIA guidelines (August 2016) now replace the Transport Assessment Guidelines for Developments (August 2006 version for trial and evaluation). Therefore, all new applications, from 30 September 2016, must now be prepared having regard to the current 2016 TIA guidelines.

About the TIA guidelines
The TIA guidelines bring together relevant technical standards and policies in order to consistently and comprehensively assess the level of impact development will have on the transport network, whilst keeping in line with state planning policies and practises.
As such, the TIA guidelines provide clarification of, and expand on, the transport information required and the scope and content of the assessment in order to satisfy the relevant policies. They will help streamline the assessment and approvals process by ensuring the required supporting information is provided up-front with land use proposals.
Officers within state and local government will use the TIA guidelines to assist them in assessing the transport implications of land use development proposals. Proponents of land use developments, and their planning/ transport consultants will use the guidelines to assist them in determining land use and transport integration, the transport infrastructure required to support their development and the potential transport impacts on the surrounding area.
The TIA guidelines have been structured to accommodate, and be used for, different stages of the planning and approval process. As such the TIA guidelines are organised into 5 stand-alone volumes, with relevant checklists in volumes 2-4.

• Volume 1 – Introduction and general guidance
• Volume 2 – Planning schemes, structure plans and activity centre plans
• Volume 3 – Subdivision
• Volume 4 – Individual developments
• Volume 5 – Technical guidance

All of the above documents are available to download at:
https://www.dplh.wa.gov.au/policy-and-legislation/state-planning-framework/fact-sheets,-manuals-and-guidelines/transport-impact-assessment-guidelines

How can local governments ensure compliance for Individual Developments?
As indicated previously, local governments will use the TIA guidelines to assist them in assessing the transport implications of land use development proposals. It is therefore important that developers are given appropriate directions to ensure that Traffic Impact Assessments are prepared and submitted in accordance with these guidelines.
In most instances local government officers will not have sufficient information to assess the likely impact in terms of trip generation and hence may have difficulty determining whether a Transport Impact Statement or Transport Impact Assessment is required.
For individual developments, officers are usually able to determine the initial level of assessment required based on Land Use details such as residential dwelling numbers, school students and gross floor areas and/or number of seats for entertainment venues, restaurants/ cafés, as shown in Table 1 .

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​Due to the level of detail and hence costs associated with the preparation of Transport Impact Assessments, officers should not request this level of assessment unless they are satisfied that the development is high impact or that the roads and intersections in the vicinity of the development site already experience capacity and safety problems and hence the impact of the development on these roads and intersections warrants assessment. Officers should be aware that the new guidelines allow for the level of assessment to be increased where the initial Transport Impact Statement indicates that specific issues require more detailed assessment or that the impact is greater than initially anticipated and a more detailed assessment is required, i.e. Section 6.4 of Volume 4 of the Guidelines state that:

“Advice from the approving authority to proponents on the level of assessment required is to be given, and taken, on a ‘without prejudice’ basis. This does not preclude the approving authority requesting further information at its discretion.
This particularly applies to transport impact statements where the information provided may indicate that specific issues require more detailed assessment or that the impact is greater than initially anticipated and a more detailed TIA is required.
While this may result in a degree of uncertainty for the proponent, it is considered that some flexibility is required to allow approving authorities to ask for further information, when the preliminary assessment raises additional issues or concerns.
If approving authorities were to be bound by their initial advice on the level and extent of assessment and the parameters for the assessment, they would be likely to use a conservative approach. For example, they may ask for a larger study area just in case the impacts extend beyond what would normally be expected. This would result in unnecessary work for the proponent in many cases.
By allowing approving authorities some powers to request additional information after the initial assessment, it is considered that their initial requests for assessment will be more reasonable, thereby reducing the level of unnecessary work required to be undertaken by proponents.”

Suggested wording to ensure compliance for Individual Developments
The following text has been prepared by David Wilkins, Principal and Senior Traffic Engineer at i3 consultants WA, to assist local governments with requesting the appropriate level of assessment in order to determine the likely transport impacts of individual developments and is provided in a format that can be cut and pasted into the Councils policies, guidelines or standard paragraphs if deemed appropriate.

Moderate Impact Traffic Impact Statement Request
Based on the development details provided, the [City/ Town/ Shire of Name] has determined that a Traffic Impact Statement is required to be prepared and submitted in accordance with the requirements of Part B of Volume 4 of the WAPC document ‘Transport Assessment Impact Guidelines’ available at:
http://www.planning.wa.gov.au/dop_pub_pdf/TIAGuidelinesVolume4IndividualDevelopments.pdf.

Note that this is an initial assessment and that the [City/ Town/ Shire] reserves its right to request a more detailed assessment should the Traffic Impact Statement indicate a higher impact than originally anticipated.

Site-specific issues to be assessed must be discussed and agreed with the following officers prior to commencing the transport statement:

• Planning/ Land Use Issues, [Name, Title, Direct Telephone Number, email address]; and
• Traffic & Transport Issues including traffic data, [Name, Title, Direct Telephone Number, email address]

A checklist of the typical information required is provided in Appendix A1 of Volume 4 of the WAPC document ‘Transport Assessment Impact Guidelines’. This checklist may be used by the proponent and/ or the person undertaking the transport impact statement as a method of ensuring that all items have been addressed and submitted with the transport information.

While it is not mandatory for the checklist to be submitted with the Traffic Impact Statement report, this would assist the [City/ Town/ Shire] in identifying any further information required to process the application.

High Impact Traffic Impact Assessment Request
Based on the development details provided, the [City/ Town/ Shire of Name] has determined that a Traffic Impact Assessment is required to be prepared and submitted in accordance with the requirements of Part C of Volume 4 of the WAPC document ‘Transport Assessment Impact Guidelines’ available at:
http://www.planning.wa.gov.au/dop_pub_pdf/TIAGuidelinesVolume4IndividualDevelopments.pdf.

Site-specific issues to be assessed must be discussed and agreed with the following officers prior to commencing the transport statement:

• Planning/ Land Use Issues, [Name, Title, Direct Telephone Number, email address]; and
• Traffic & Transport Issues including traffic data, [Name, Title, Direct Telephone Number, email address]

​A checklist of the typical information required is provided in Appendix A2 of Volume 4 of the WAPC document ‘Transport Assessment Impact Guidelines’. This checklist is to be filled out, signed by the proponent and the transport specialist, and submitted with the TIA, as part of the development application. In the case that revision of the Traffic Impact Assessment or further information is required by the approving authority a Revision Checklist is included in Appendix A2 to ensure requested information is provided.

Disclaimer
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this note is correct, it is strongly recommended that readers take appropriate precautions to verify contents prior to adopting the whole or part of this note as policy or guidelines.