Gary White, our President in 2024 left for oversees before Christmas and expressed his regret for not being able to write his editorial.
Last year’s AGM covered off much of what we had achieved up to that time and we managed to fulfil all that was promised for the remainder of the year.
Naturally with a new board comes new ideas and much of the planning has already started, including more training programs as required by the Professional Engineers Registration Scheme (PERS), the Mobility Technology Excellence Awards and a Technical Symposium on Transportation, Mobilisation and Accessibility for people with disabilities.
Both will take place later in 2025. Much of the early planning is now complete and we look forward to rolling these two major events out in the first quarter of next year.
During the year we were focused on delivering value to our members; the Voice of the Customer surveys done in previous years clearly asked for more conference activities.
As is the case every December, we delivered our Formula SAE-A event, this was our 25th. With an
Welcome to the New Year
exhausting five days of early mornings and late nights, the award ceremony ended on a high and a big congratulations goes to Monash University and RMIT for winning the overall Electric Vehicle and Internal Combustion classes respectively.
Thank you to the sponsors of the event and to the companies who made the careers expo such as success, we could not do this without you.
Another big thank you goes to the 150+ volunteers who made this amazing event a reality, I know the students truly appreciate what we do for them.
Although in its infancy, we are embarking on an initiative to engage with Formula SAE-A alumni to ensure they stay connected after they graduate, it’s great to see students embrace SAE-A membership during their years of study, but the challenge is to do better in retaining them beyond those years.
On behalf of Gary White, the SAE-A Board, our staff and supporters, we hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a successful and rewarding New Year. I hope you are enjoying your time with family and friends and I look forward to collaborating with you again in 2025.
We look forward to connecting with you in 2025 and take this opportunity to remind you to renew your membership which you can do online in the membership portal at www.saea.com.au, or when you receive the automated renewal reminder in your inbox. Please contact the office if you need assistance.
Formula SAE-A through the eyes of a high school student
by Jake Stewart, a 16-year-old student from Padua College – Mornington
Participating in the Formula SAE experience through Real Time Learning was an incredibly valuable opportunity that has started to shape my future in motorsport. The event provided direct exposure to the dynamics of the competition and offered a chance to connect with the fantastic people behind the event, both competitors and officials.
The most impactful part was meeting with the Monash Motorsport team where I, along with other students, had an hour long conversation about what competing in Formula SAE-A means for the Monash team through this, I gained insights into the importance of problem solving, teamwork and innovation. Additionally, the event served as an opportunity to meet with industry professionals, where I had the privilege of speaking with Walkinshaw Andretti United team members. Their willingness to share advice and insights has left a lasting impression on me and further strengthened my ambition to pursue motorsport.
Shortly after the event, I was fortunate to connect with the CEO of Walkinshaw Andretti United where I shared my CV with him and the High-Performance Manager of the team. While this moment happened independently from the event, the meeting with WAU team members played a crucial role in helping me build the relationships and confidence to take these steps.
Earlier this year I attended the Formula One Grand Prix, I found it ignited my passion for motorsport and has since inspired me to seek opportunities to get involved in the industry.
Thanks to the opportunity from Real Time Learning, I have been able to accelerate my development as an aspiring engineer and make connections with students and industry professionals alike. The Formula SAE-A experience played a significant role in helping me decide which university to attend and which areas of the team I would like to be involved in.
Finding Success in Failure: Hidden Lessons in FSAE-A
In the world of Formula SAE-A, setbacks are a given, and failure is never seen as an end, but as a vital stepping stone toward success.
Students are encouraged to adopt a growth mindset—the belief that abilities and intelligence are developed through effort, learning, and perseverance.
This mindset becomes essential when facing the inevitable challenges of designing and building a race car. Whether it’s a design flaw, a mechanical failure, or a communication breakdown within the team, students learn that every setback is an opportunity to improve and adapt.
A prime example of this occurred with the QUT autonomous team, who, after an intense day of scrutineering in preparation for their autonomous vehicle demonstration, experienced the competitions first-ever crash of an FSAE-A autonomous vehicle. While this was a setback, the crash was handled safely, all procedures were followed, and the vehicle sustained only minimal damage –transforming a challenging situation into a valuable learning experience.
By shifting focus from fearing failure to embracing it as an opportunity to learn, teams become more collaborative, creative,
and innovative. They build the resilience to face challenges head-on and develop the persistence to keep moving forward, even when the road gets tough. This mentality, developed in the high-pressure environment of Formula SAE-A, becomes a lifelong skill that students carry with them into their careers.
Nick Owen - FSAE AV Event Captain TMIEAust CEngT IntET(Aus) NER
Managing Director Nuvotion P/L
Recognising the best in engineering
The Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia is pleased to present the 2025 Mobility Technology Excellence awards, one of the most prestigious events in the mobility engineering industry calendar.
The awards are a fantastic opportunity for companies, educators and researchers to showcase their people and operations in areas such as electric, autonomous and combustion engine technology, aerospace and defence, heavy commercial vehicles (on-and-off road), rail and rolling stock, and specialty vehicles. We also invite mobility industry supply chains, research and development (R&D) agencies and service organisations to apply.
The awards will be presented in three categories:
• Corporate: Awarded to businesses and organisations.
• Student: Awarded to both under-graduate and-post graduate students.
• Professional: Awarded to young engineers, women in industry and those who have made a significant contribution to the mobility engineering sector.
A Mobility Technology Excellence Award has always been considered a prestigious accolade within the mobility engineering profession and offers significant recognition across the industry.
All award nominations are reviewed by an expert panel of judges comprising of highly experienced and respected engineers in their fields.
Companies and individuals may self-nominate or can be recommended for nomination.
Further information will be rolled out in the first quarter of 2025, but should you wish to discuss this initiative further please call Adrian Feeney on 0432 689 114.
SAE establishes guidelines for hydrogen refueling at airports
SAE International and EUROCAE have established comprehensive guidelines for hydrogen fueling stations at airports, marking a significant development in aviation fuel infrastructure.
SAE International and EUROCAE have jointly published comprehensive guidelines titled “Hydrogen Fueling Stations for Airports, in Both Gaseous and Liquid Form,” marking a significant milestone in the adoption of hydrogen as a sustainable aviation fuel.
These guidelines, detailed in SAE AIR8466 developed in collaboration with EUROCAE’s ER034, address the crucial need for standardisation in the burgeoning sector of hydrogen-fuelled aviation.
The new SAE AIR8466 guidelines serve as an essential framework for establishing performance targets, safety limits, and fuelling protocols necessary to integrate hydrogen fuel solutions across various types of commercial aircraft.
This includes a broad spectrum from hydrogen electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) to regional, narrow-body, and widebody aircraft, even encompassing lighter-thanair crafts.
These guidelines meticulously categorise the hydrogen fueling process, taking into account variables such as ambient temperature, fuel delivery temperature, and the initial pressure in the hydrogen storage system.
Such detailed consideration ensures the development of robust fueling protocols that can adapt to diverse operational and environmental conditions.
SAE ‘universal’ Plug and Charge for the USA
The standardisation organisation SAE International is announcing a framework for ‘universal’ Plug and Charge in collaboration with the US government. Initial tests are scheduled to begin in 2025.
The SAE Industry Technologies Consortia (ITC) and its Electric Vehicle Public Key Infrastructure (EVPKI) consortium are cooperating with the US government agency Joint Office of Energy and Transportation on the broad Plug and Charge approach. Its members include leading automotive OEMs, charging device manufacturers, charging station operators, eMobility service providers and so-called PKI providers.
PKI stands for ‘Public Key Infrastructure’ and the players operating in this field can, for example, issue digital certificates that authenticate the identity of users, devices or services. As is well known, this is a core topic at Plug and Charge.
The new framework creates a common security solution that enables vehicles, chargers and charging networks to communicate securely with each other and achieve true interoperability throughout the entire charging system.
The solution is based on a so-called Certificate Trust List (CTL) – a list with a linked catalogue of criteria that forms the basis for the inclusion of PKI providers from the industry in the SAE EVPKI governance model. The aim is to create an interoperable PKI solution for the eMobility industry and to establish a competitive PKI market for the eMobility sector, which does not yet exist in this form.
Sepura opens lines of communication for Unit of Queensland
Specialist communications company Sepura provided the University of Queensland FSAE-A team with specialised motorsport communications equipment, which the students integrated into the car’s design and packaging.
For the first time, the team had two-way communication from the vehicle to the team, enabling them to strategically plan and communicate during the event.
The students engineered the integration of the TETRA radio and wiring harness into the vehicle. Sepura provided its compact SC21 handheld device which was installed in the car and connected to the driver’s helmet, complete with noise-cancelling helmet kits.
The Sepura SC20 device coupled with a specialised headset enabled clear communication between the driver and chief engineer during the competition.
Sepura also supplied additional radios throughout the FSAE-A event.
The company said that they were thrilled to support the University of Queensland students by providing equipment to integrate into their car.
Spotlight on Martha Oplopiadis
SAE-A board member
Choosing a career in high school can be a difficult decision, but for SAE-A board member Martha Oplopiadis, ‘engineering’ was top of her mind from the start.
“During my high school years, I was curious as to how things operated, I enjoyed the science, mathematics and problem solving,” Ms Oplopiadis said. “Engineering offered a logical approach for working through complex issues and I enjoyed the variety.
“Once in the workforce, I found that there were problems to be solved everywhere, and critical thinking was instrumental.”
Studying engineering at Swinburne University was her way forward and after the initial common year which gave her the opportunity to experience different streams of engineering, she found her niche electing to pursue electronics and electrical engineering.
University exposed Ms Oplopiadis to studying with a variety of students from different cultural backgrounds, it exposed her to technological concepts and the satisfaction of improving community livelihoods.
Her career in mobility started in rail with Alstom, she then moved to the automotive sector with General Motors Holden, Ford, and now returning to rail at Metro Trains Melbourne.
“Working in a male orientated sector was not an issue. I focused on the opportunities, the delivery goals to achieve outcomes with quality and cost efficiencies improving financial margins.
“I enjoy taking on complex issues and turning them into simple, tangible outcomes with advancements and stakeholder influence,” Ms Oplopiadis said.
“I also advocate for STEM skills and growth in this sector because with STEM there is socio-economic prosperity.
“One of the reasons I joined the SAE-A Board was to advocate for this, the retention of STEM skills in Australia and to encourage and inspire women to take up careers in engineering and promote diversity.
“I do say to young students, study engineering and run a business, or study engineering and be a global leader, or study engineering and work on city shaping projects with talented professionals where passengers will experience connected, inter-modal journeys.
“Engineering offers a multifaceted career, as evidenced by my own diverse experience spanning manufacturing, product development, construction, rail, and infrastructure, showcasing the field’s incredible range and versatility.
“Engineering is a rewarding career, I have never stopped learning and developing as I contribute to better community outcomes.”
Her advice for young engineers is to remain open-minded, set high personal standards and work hard to achieve them.
Ms Oplopiadis has done just that, her journey started in the rail industry working for Alstom where she worked as a design engineer on Solid State Interlocking, and then onsite as a project manager. Other roles followed as time progressed.
By 2014 while at General Motors Holden Ms Oplopiadis joined the SAE-A and was Chair of the Industry Programs Working Group interacting with the State government on a skills map.
“Partnering with the State government, we took the engineering skills map on a road show and we transferred engineers from automotive to industries such as medical and construction. That was a special time,” Ms Oplopiadis said.
“I have been a member of SAE-A for 10 years. My role on the board now is Director of Memberships where my primary objective is to strategically grow our membership base and facilitate industry connections of like-minded professionals.”
During her tenure at General Motors Holden, Ms Oplopiadis held diverse roles in Sales and Marketing and Product Development. At Ford, she pioneered the establishment of the Electrical Validation and Testing organisation for the Asia Pacific region.
Both Ford and General Motors Holden were at the forefront of developing cutting-edge technologies that would shape the future of the industry, introducing innovative safety features that
were ahead of their time. Being part of this era was truly exciting.
Time, cost, quality and passenger safety was at the core of everything she did as well as collaborating with others and negotiating solutions for the benefit of the community and achieving strong financial outcomes for shareholders.
Also, during her time at General Motors Holden and Ford, she worked in America, Thailand, Germany, China, Korea and Malaysia and reflects on that time as having built a large network of global friendships.
Career highlights have included working on the W200 long wheel-base Holden Caprice project which was designed for Korea. She also led the electrical engineering team through the design and financial deliverables for the Ford Ranger and the Bronco.
Being part of a team and taking a concept through to a commercial product for the benefit of the community is a rewarding experience.
Ms Oplopiadis has returned to the rail industry as a leadership team member at Metro Trains Melbourne, where she plays a key role in delivering the landmark Metro Tunnel Project.
Collaborating with government stakeholders and navigating new commercial landscapes has expanded her professional network and created exciting opportunities.
Her high standards are obvious to those around her as she was recently awarded the 2024 Woman of Influence award from the Hellenic-Australian Chamber of Commerce (HACCI) and Industry in recognition of her commitment to engineering and STEM.
“I am honoured and grateful to the HACCI board for this prestigious award.
“I extend my appreciation to my colleagues who have collaborated with me, shared their expertise and supported me. Thank you.” Ms Oplopiadis said.
WARM, WET, WINDY
– a Challenging Formula SAE-A (FSAE-A)
Calder Park Raceway turned on weather that only Melbourne can provide, changing day-to-day from hot on the Friday to wet on the Saturday and windy on the Sunday.
That certainly gave the teams a lot to contend with especially on a wet skid pad on the Saturday morning where some teams were forced to use wet weather tyres, later the track dried allowing other teams to use slicks. Not surprisingly, those running later in the day had better track times as a result.
It was a case of ‘luck’ but that is real life, and you only have to watch some Formula One racing to see that luck does play a part at even the highest levels of sport.
Presenting well
On Friday, the business presentations were conducted by all teams to a panel of expert judges. Luck doesn’t necessarily play a part in the presentation event as teams need to comprehensively understand how the business and commercial world works, whether they are engineering students or students from other disciplines. Overall, there are three static events for points; cost, design, and business presentation.
Katelyn Czubara and Vincent Chu were two of the judges assessing the business presentations; Vincent was an ex-Monash University engineering student and Katelyn an Arts and Languages student from the Australian National University.
Vincent had studied engineering but is now a project manager with KPMG, which is one of the world’s best known professional services companies with a global reach and deep expertise in audit, assurance, tax and advisory services. This only goes to
show that engineering can take you to a whole host of different fields of work.
Vincent had a long history with FSAE-A having been with previous Monash teams at the FSAE-A competition as well as having competed in Australian and European competitions, which was quite challenging.
“It’s a mix of performance, quality and preparation. We’ve had a couple of teams that have performed very well, obviously they invested a lot of time and effort into their presentation, just coming up with their business concept, justifying it, making sure it’s really rock solid can be a difficult task,” said Vincent.
“There were some really interesting concepts or ideas presented, which is really great to see.”
Some teams are more fortunate in having a larger cohort while some having only two or three in the business team.
You only have to look at the huge size of the Monash Motorsports Team to see what a large team can do, they were successful in a number of events and finally the overall prize winner for EVs, so size in this case was important.
Monash University also came with their M24, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, the first in Australia to be able to compete with or without a driver. They had recently taken the car to Europe for competitions and did well, so the car has been well tested.
Luck also played a part during many of the dynamic events.
MUR spurred on by a difficult event
In a previous edition of VTE we had a look at how the Melbourne University Motorsports (MUR) team was progressing with the 2024 competition. The team members were mostly new and preparing the car and team for the event was challenging.
After the event we spoke with Liam Whitehouse who this year was the chassis lead but will be next year’s team principal.
“We had quite a few obstacles, it took us a lot longer to get through all our tech inspections,” he said. “We found so many issues with so many aspects of the car. It required a lot of co-ordination and teamwork to get it all done on time.
“It was definitely an absolute mission from the team – it was amazing to see the entire team behind it. Even though we weren’t one of the most competitive teams when it came to the dynamic events, we were definitely one of the loudest.
“Our pride, our passion, the amount of work the team had put in over the past 12 months showed how much everyone cared.”
The main obstacles for MUR were experienced during the tech inspections, which they found were stricter this year and when it came to engineering practice there were areas they hadn’t refined and that let them down. Simple things like keeping good records of what was purchased – a lot of that came up during tech inspections and it became a big hurdle to overcome.
They did overcome their issues, but it put them so far behind they didn’t compete in any of the Saturday track events as they only passed tech inspection on Sunday morning. Normally all tech inspections are completed by the end of Friday.
The biggest highlight of the weekend for MUR was passing all those tech inspections, the main goal is to have an FSAE-A compliant vehicle.
“Our main focus was to get a car that would run in the competition,” Liam said. “In the end we got there.
“Every time we got one of those stickers on
the nose cone of our car, the energy, the sheer volume of the cheers from the entire team was definitely a highlight.”
However, the setbacks for MUR only spurred them on to want to do better. Liam said that already team members were starting work on next year’s car.
“Throughout the year we peaked at around 105 members in the team, but when it got towards the end of the year, some had to drop off,” Liam said. “We probably averaged around 75 and we’re doing some big recruitment drives, we’re hoping to end at that healthy 100 number.”
The team is expecting to lose very few current members next year, which is exciting for them as it means they don’t lose the experience and knowledge gained.
Small wins, but big efforts
By no means was MUR the only team to have issues or delight in smaller wins.
Taiwan University, came with a redesigned EV car having made a few changes mainly to build-in more reliability. They did better than they expected at the dynamic events and were pleased overall with the development of their car.
Another team who travelled from overseas was New Zealand team, the University of Waikato, team WESMO, who brought over their very first EV car. Even further afield, the Alfaisal University team from Saudi Arabia had to overcome hurdles just to make it to Australia.
They were one of the four teams competing with an IC car, and were very keen to do the competition even though they had to travel long distances to get to the event. Due to delays at customs, their car did not arrive until the Thursday before the competition started. They battled through and although they missed out on winning any major event, they did come away with the Special Commendation Award which was a popular result as demonstrated by the reaction from all teams at the Awards Ceremony and very much appreciated by the team members.
Politicians on the grid
Three Liberal politicians took up the offer to come to see Formula SAE-A and here’s what two of them had to say – Bridget Vallence and David Hodgett
Without a doubt Formula SAE-A is primarily for students, and universities, but taking a wider view, it’s an important event for an audience that doesn’t spring immediately to mind – politicians. After all it’s the politicians who have so much bearing on how our education system operates and how our manufacturing industry thrives. So, it was great that Matthew Guy, Bridget Vallence and David Hodgett were able to spend Friday morning at Calder Park Raceway.
All were given a background briefing on FSAE-A by CEO Adrian Feeney, and how it fits with other Formula events around the world.
“It’s really fantastic to see so many young people engaged and excited about what they’re doing,” Ms Vallence said. “And, there are clearly so many different aspects to the competition. It’s not just about designing, engineering and manufacturing a car. I understand they have to learn about running a budget and working towards critical timeframes, all of these are life skills. So, it’s really nice to see so many young people eager to participate and focus fully on what they’re doing.”
Mr Hodgett picked up on the point of involving politicians in the event saying that the more, politicians, that you can expose this event, the better we are informed.
“Coming out today to see firsthand what’s happening out here has made me realise how professional this event is”, he said.
“It’s not just building and operating a car, it’s about marketing, budgeting, and working to a Profit and Loss. Having an understanding of what the program is actually about, helps us to make future connections.”
As has been recently introduced to the Formula SAE-A program Friday was also the day when high school and primary school students are invited to experience what could be looming in their future.
“It’s really great you’ve got high school students here because there’s so many young people who would be interested in engineering, manufacturing, product design and development, but unless they see it in action, they don’t experience the tangible outcomes of the event,” Ms Vallence said. “For young people to actually come out and see this, obviously generates a great deal of enthusiasm.”
Over many years, FSAE-A students have been leaning towards the production of Electric Vehicles (EV) and Autonomous Vehicles (AV), turning away from Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars; this year there were just four ICE cars but 19 EVs and five AVs.
“I think the push is on everywhere to support the production in EV and AV technologies,” Mr Hodgett said. “What you’re doing here, is quite fantastic. And governments are trying to lead the way and generate interest in these new technologies. I think there could be a partnership or a role to play here.”
The automotive industry has been an innovator forever according to Ms Vallence who had worked in the industry prior to entering politics. She said that it was exciting to see that it was still alive and happening today, even though we don’t manufacture mainstream vehicles here anymore.
She said that it was in the government’s best interests to provide training and apprenticeships and making sure that right through primary, secondary and higher education we are encouraging the take up of STEM subjects. Government has a role to play to ensure they connect industry to the education system.
“We’ve got a shortage of engineers in Australia and we really need to work hard to make sure that we actually support industry and businesses to take on young people in engineering, but also motivate and encourage young people to look at future careers in those fields,” she said. “Encouraging that in school, and supporting these kinds of competitions is a way forward to advocate for engineering professions.
“For example, students here are not only building a car, but actually the skills they’re learning could be used, in other sectors such as mining, manufacturing, defence and aerospace.
“We need to do better at making sure young people know that these skills can support many of these jobs in Victoria.”
Bridget Vallence was elected to the Victorian Parliament in November 2018 to represent the Evelyn District and is currently the Shadow Minister for Finance, Trade and Investment and Manager for Opposition Business.
Prior to entering Parliament, Ms Vallence worked for 16 years in the automotive industry as a procurement professional in Australia, Asia, and global markets, and is also experienced with organisational change and business transformation projects.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.
David Hodgett was elected as the State Member for Kilsyth in November 2006 (now Member for Croydon). Over the years, Mr Hodgett has served in many portfolios and is currently Shadow Special Minister of State and Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Manufacturing and Innovation.
Prior to entering Parliament, Mr Hodgett was the district registrar for Migration and Refugee Review Tribunals, managing WA, SA, Tasmania and Victoria.
Mr Hodgett holds a Bachelor of Business (Distinction) from RMIT University.
Mr Hodgett added that having been a former manufacturing minister he realised that everywhere in industry, employers talk about people not being job ready.
“What has sparked my interest is that this competition gives you that practical experience to become job ready – they’ll be lured into jobs better trained and qualified –or as one of the students mentioned to me said, they really do hit the ground running because they have this FSAE-A training behind them which their employer recognises.
“Anything that actually makes young people more job ready is better for industry, better for them personally, and that sparks our interest when we look at government programs and policies which can help expand and develop more opportunities like this.
2024 Formula VIP a great success attracting many Politician’s and industry leaders
The VIP event for Formula SAE-A (FSAE-A) attracted many industry leaders from the advanced manufacturing sector, government and industry journalists.
More than 25 industry leaders enjoyed a lunch hosted by SAE-A where they were addressed by Adrian Feeney, CEO and Chair of the FSAE-A organising committee for a brief overview of the events’ 25-year history and the 4-day program students undertake at the end of each year.
Following on from that a tour was conducted with some FSAE-A long term volunteers walking through the activities and outlining the current state of play from technical inspection, tilt table, rain tests, pits, presentation and design, demonstrating the physical reality of the program to the guests.
As quoted by many faculty advisors throughout the event, students are attracted to engineering at their university because of FSAE-A and the learning opportunities it provides to their students due to its hands-on competitive nature.
The VIP event exposes industry leaders to see first-hand the staggering work over a 12-month come to life in just four days over a weekend in December each year, with students performing at their best under pressure. Last year attracted many politicians to the event with two Victorian Government Parliamentary Secretaries experiencing Thursday and Friday’s event – Mr Josh Bull, Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, and Ms Sheena Watt, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Action. Both were amazed at what they saw confirming that FSAE-A is such a hidden secret that needs to be told.
TEAMS 2024
INTERNAL COMBUSTION
Alfaisal University, Haizum Racing, Saudi
Australian National University, ANU Formula Sports, Australia
RMIT University, RMIT Motorsport (IC), Australia
Western Sydney University, Western Sydney Formula SAE, Australia
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
Monash University, Monash Motorsport, Australia
Queensland University of Technology, QUT Motorsport, Australia
The University of Queensland, The University of Queensland Formula SAE Team, Australia
University of New South Wales, UNSW Redback Racing, Australia
Western Sydney University, Western Sydney Formula SAE, Australia
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Curtin University, Curtin Motorsport Team, Australia
Griffith University, Griffith Racing Team, Australia
National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei Tech Racing, Taiwan
Queensland University of Technology, QUT Motorsport, Australia
RMIT University, RMIT Motorsport, Australia
Swinburne University of Technology, Team Swinburne Formula SAE, Australia
The University of Adelaide, Adelaide University Motorsport Team, Australia
The University of Auckland, The University of Auckland Formula SAE Team, New Zealand
The University of Queensland, The University of Queensland Formula SAE Team, Australia
The University of Sydney, Sydney Motorsport, Australia
University of Canterbury, University of Canterbury Motorsport, New Zealand
University of Melbourne, MUR Motorsports, Australia
University of New South Wales Canberra, Academy Racing, Australia
University of Newcastle, NU Racing, Australia
University of South Australia, UniSA Motorsport, Australia
University of Tasmania, UTAS Motorsport, Australia
University of Technology Sydney, UTS Motorsport Electric, Australia
University of Waikato, WESMO, New Zealand
University of Western Australia, UWA Motorsport (UWAM), Australia
University of Wollongong, UOW Motorsport, Australia
Western Sydney University, Western Sydney Formula SAE, Australia
Sheena Watt surrounded by the team at RMIT University
Josh Bull with students from the University of Adelaide
Swinburne Celebrates 25 Years of FSAE-A Competition
Initially Swinburne University’s team was called Full Boar Racing, and it was one of the first 10 universities to complete in FSAE-A in 2000. It was a silver jubilee year for Team Swinburne, it has nurtured hundreds of students during that time.
“We were one of the initial players when they started FSAE-A,” Dr Ambarish Kulkarni said. Dr Kulkarni is Associate Professor of Computer Aided Engineering at Swinburne and the director of the vehicle engineering team at the School of Engineering.
“So, from our point of view, it’s a great asset for students because it brings open-ended, challenging projects to the engineering students. There is nothing like it.
“Whenever I go and ask first-year students why they picked Swinburne against other universities, they say its the applied skills that FSAE-A brings.
“It’s a main attraction point for them to pick up engineering, and more often nowadays, a lot of female students are also involved in the competition bringing diversity to the event. That also brings women into engineering or STEM. It’s a key factor.”
Swinburne is committed to increasing diversity in STEM fields, particularly in automotive engineering. There is a positive trend across engineering disciplines, and the multidisciplinary nature of working on the FSAE-A event is expected to continue attracting more women to the profession. The university has also increased its placement of women in leadership roles within the team which has provided role models for aspiring female engineers.
Laura Blakeley is a physics major with a passion for motorsport, she has embraced her behind the scenes experience in the management and function of an applied engineering project. As Business Lead for 2024, she has enjoyed the steep learning curve involved in joining such a dynamic team.
Simone Stephens is a passionate electrical engineering student with a strong interest in motorsport, she has been part of the team
for 1.5 years. Taking on the role of Power and Electronics Lead just six months into her journey.
This year there were around 80 student team members, of which around 40 were active but at any stage there are up to 80 students registered from a variety of disciplines and school faculties. There are students from the business school, finance, media, and of course engineering; it makes the whole process fun but also quite real.
Members of the engineering sections gain experience in designing for manufacture, composite materials design and layout, CAD work, PCB and loom manufacturing, electrical architecture and dynamic systems design. Members of the business areas gain experience in livery and graphic design, event planning and management, brand image cultivation and management, marketing and sponsorship negotiation.
Swinburne’s strong mechanical background paired with dedication and zeal has ensured a competitive reputation for the team, and its recent breakthrough with the four-wheeldrive electric drivetrain enabled a pleasing 3rd overall in 2022.
Since 2019 they have also been developing a fully autonomous vehicle, TSAR, alongside the competition car, which was showcased for the first time in 2023.
“We used to have IC cars but in 2009, when I joined, we developed our first electric car,” Dr Kulkarni said.
“The move to EV technology is very good in terms of what’s happening today forcing students to adapt to new learnings including autonomous.
“That makes us take a step change because as technology changes, we need to move with it. And that’s what FSAE-A helps us to deliver.”
Swinburne has been at the forefront of the competition throughout its journey and this
is in some way due to their visionary outlook. Swinburne students have also been sent overseas to acquire knowledge from the US and it pays off through the development of new capabilities in battery systems, battery management systems, and electric motors.
“We typically budget around 250k every year on this particular event. So, that’s a lot of money ” Dr Kulkarni said. “I’m just sitting as a director putting the strategies and the funding together.
“A lot of people are involved, who build and develop the car. It’s not an easy job. And I think engineering is always about challenges and overcoming those obstacles. And this is what I think is a great thing about FSAE-A. It teaches them how to be hands-on.”
Dr Kulkarni explained that his students are very much in demand, many industries call and ask for a student who has done FSAE-A because they are going to be good engineers.
That’s the benchmark that FSAE-A sets, it really helps students enter their career paths.
“This year, I was hoping that we achieve a second or third position. We did well in acceleration. But the students were saying that one of the sensors was playing up and that’s why we didn’t achieve these placements,” Dr Kulkarni said.
“Unfortunately, that sensor was not available within Australia so we had to contact Germany, and we just ran out of time.
“We didn’t push the car too hard because we wanted to avoid breaking down. Overall, our static events received good marks compared to other years.
“The only thing was the sensor challenges, but still we won third in acceleration, which I’m happy about.
“This is something we will learn from which is a good thing. That’s how students learn, plan and handle challenges under pressure.”
FSAE-A 2024 results
Congratulations to every team that competed in the Formula SAE-A 2024 competition! Your participation made the event a resounding success. The teams showcased incredible ingenuity under pressure and gained invaluable real-world experience from dedicated volunteers. Well done to all!
For a complete set of all results visit https://www.saea.com.au/results-2024
ELECTRIC VEHICLE
1st Place
OVERALL CLASS WINNER
2nd Place
3rd Place
Monash University The University of Auckland Curtin University
COST
The University of Queensland University of Tasmania Curtin University ENGINEERING DESIGN
Monash University University of Auckland University of New South Wales BUSINESS PRESENTATION
Monash University The University of Auckland Curtin University SKID PAD
Monash University University of New South Wales University of Western Australia ACCELERATION
The University of Auckland Monash University Swinburne University of Technology AUTOCROSS
Monash University University of New South Wales The University of Auckland ENDURANCE
The University of Queensland University of Wollongong Monash University EFFICIENCY
University of Canterbury University of Tasmania University of Wollongong
Matthew Guy enjoys an outing at Formula SAE-A
The SAE-A was extremely pleased to host
The Honorable Matthew Guy, Shadow Minister for Public Transport at the 2024 FSAE-A event.
Mr Guy enjoyed experiencing the event – talking to students and sponsors and soaking up the incredible atmosphere created by students working to get their cars on track.
Due to the atmosphere and the thrill of seeing so many committed and enthusiastic students, we are sure to see Mr Guy attend in 2025.
SPECIALTY AWARDS
MA Inspiring Motorsport Award
Australian National University
Awarded to the team that shows the best spirit
LEAP Award for Best Use of Simulation
University of New South Wales
Awarded to the team that best uses simulation
SAE-A Harry Watson Award
University of Canterbury
Awarded to the team that makes a distinct contribution
Technical Inspection Award
National Taipei University of Technology
Awarded to the team most organised during TI
Caterpillar Automated Vehicle Drive Award
Monash University
Awarded to Formula SAE-A participants who demonstrate excellence in automation and engineering
SAE-A Special Commendation Award
Alfaisal University
INTERNAL COMBUSTION VEHICLE
1st Place
OVERALL CLASS WINNER
RMIT University
COST
Australian National University
ENGINEERING DESIGN
RMIT University
BUSINESS PRESENTATION
RMIT University
SKID PAD
RMIT University
ACCELERATION
Australian National University AUTOCROSS
RMIT University
ENDURANCE
RMIT University
EFFICIENCY
RMIT University
Matthew Guy in a Formula vehicle constructed by the University of Queensland.
Matthew Guy with Adrian Feeney, CEO and Chair of the organising committee for FSAE-A and President of SAE-A, Gary White.
Student teams provide perfect breeding ground for next-gen simulation engineers
There is a surge of innovation occurring within local industry as designers and engineers increasingly integrate the innovative, groundbreaking technologies that are demanded by modern consumers into their products.
Today’s engineers must consider a wide range of complex systems and capabilities including electrification, optical systems and autonomous features while addressing environmental concerns such as growing fuel costs and end-of-life waste management. This trend has grown demand for graduate engineers who are skilled in applying engineering simulation tools to help these companies design and integrate these new technologies, as well as optimise the overall performance and reliability of their designs. Greg Horner, managing director of LEAP Australia, says that LEAP’s engineering team is at the coalface of how these trends are impacting on the use of simulation within industry. “There is growing demand within companies, both big and small, local and global, for engineering graduates with real world experience in applying simulation tools such as Ansys,” he said. “This now expands across all physics domains, including the simulation of structures, impacts/explicit dynamics, fluid dynamics, electromagnetics both high and low frequency, plus new autonomous systems requiring certification of safety-critical embedded systems and validation of functional safety.”
Notably, Mr Horner sees this demand spreading across a diverse range of industries from industries that have typically been more established in using advanced simulation tools such as aerospace, automotive and defence, through to industries that are increasingly embracing simulation tools such as energy, mining and healthcare. “Over a decade ago, LEAP recognised this trend and committed additional resources to foster a greater knowledge and understanding of simulation in academia, by firstly partnering with all the leading universities in our region to help make Ansys software more accessible to students, and also by providing sponsorship and mentoring to major student team competitions such as Formula SAE, Solar Car Challenge, Unmanned Air Vehicle Challenge, Human Powered Vehicle and Rocketry competitions,” Mr Horner said. “For our customers in industry who design and manufacture these increasingly complex products and systems, LEAP offers extensive local mentoring and support, but we also need our local universities to continue producing job-ready graduates with up-todate skills and experience in using modern product development tools and technologies.
“This growing capability will in turn help to raise the competitiveness of local industry and I expect will help sustainably grow our intellectual economy across Australia and New Zealand.”
At the Formula SAE competition, LEAP and Ansys jointly sponsor an award to support the expanding use of simulations within the many Australasian teams. Both companies are excited by the vision of SAE Australasia and are seeing the benefits of more job-ready engineering graduates becoming available to Ansys customers in industry.
Nick Foster, Academic Manager – Ansys Business at LEAP says that the FSAE competition and student team platform provides an outstanding and extremely effective learning opportunity. “LEAP supports many of the student FSAE teams and regularly witness the students pushing the boundaries in terms of technology and innovation. The passion and enthusiasm of the students is very evident, and we are committed to supporting the teams with best-in-class tools, training and support. As the teams become more experienced, and with the introduction of the autonomous vehicle category, simulation requirements become more complex, and LEAP is motivated and more than able to support this growth to assist in developing the next generation of engineers.”
LEAP’s engineers typically provide assistance to Formula-SAE students with applications including simulation of:
• Fluid dynamics and thermalaerodynamics, radiator flow, battery cooling…
• Structural mechanics and dynamics –suspension, chassis, composites, additive manufacturing of complex parts
• Electromagnetics – motors, inverters, EMI/EMC testing, battery systems
• Digital Twins – ROMs for fast and accurate system simulations.
Many students are still unaware of the free Ansys learning resources available to them. LEAP Australia has developed an academic portal to help students apply Ansys to the complex applications relevant to student team competitions. Likewise, the Ansys Student Community forum at https:// studentcommunity.ansys.com/ includes online forums specifically geared towards:
• How to install & use the free Ansys Student, with Tutorials for specific applications
• Open Discussion of using Ansys for student team competitions.
While the vast majority of student teams already have access to Ansys through their central university licences, LEAP and Ansys are able to provide additional licences specifically for the use of student teams, along with tailored mentoring and support. Student teams can expand their partnership with LEAP and Ansys by enquiring at www. leapaust.com.au/student-teams/
LEAP also helps companies across ANZ to embrace emerging Industry 4.0 technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Augmented Reality (AR) platforms (ThingWorx and Vuforia, developed by PTC). These emerging technologies are helping to bring together the physical and digital worlds and changing the way that engineers will create, operate, and service new products.
Mesh of a Formula SAE car in Ansys
UNSW Redback Racing being awarded the 2024 Best Use of Simulation prize
Land Defence Expo a gateway to defence markets
The biennial Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition is a gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from Australia, the United States and Europe.
With strong commitment from the Australian Army and a substantial Asian, European and US industry presence, Land Forces provides an interface between Australian, regional and international industry on every level, from Defence Force customers to prime contractors, small to medium enterprises and start-up companies.
In addition to hosting senior international military, defence, government, scientific and industry delegations from around the world, Land Forces attracts a comprehensive array of defence professionals and trade visitors at all levels.
The three-day event integrates Australia’s largest defence industry exhibition, a comprehensive mix of expert presentations, conferences and symposia exploring the
current challenges and opportunities arising within the land defence sector, and daily networking opportunities.
The symposium brought together almost 2000 attendees from across the services, allied and partner forces, defence industry and academia. It was held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
In 2024, the Australian Army’s Chief of Army Symposium (CAS) was held at Land Forces – this is the first time since 2018 it has been held in conjunction with the event.
CAS 2024 was accompanied by the Army Innovation Day (AID) and Quantum Technology Challenge (QTC) expositions rounding out Army’s program at Land Forces 2024 and giving industry and academia a chance to respond to Army’s current challenges with innovative technologies.
BAE Systems Australia unveiled a cuttingedge uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) at Land Forces 2024. The UGV gives military commanders an added tactical option while keeping soldiers out of harm’s way.
The Autonomous Tactical Light Armour System (ATLASTM) Collaborative Combat Variant (CCV), a new, cost effective, modular, 8x8 UGV, has been designed and built leveraging BAE Systems’ world-leading expertise in autonomous technology, armoured vehicles and in collaboration with industry partners.
Three Australian innovators were named winners of the Land Forces 2024 Innovation Awards, they were among 20 finalists who each delivered a 3-minute pitch on day one of Land Forces 2024.
The winners were:
Land Forces 2024 Innovation Award: Shane ‘Buzz’ Sarlin, Buzzworks for optical clarity, ballistic facial and mandibular protection for any tactical helmet.
Land Forces 2024 Emerging Technology Award: Daniel Stevens, Seitec for a system to detect and localise unexploded ordnance in real time, whether dropped from an aircraft or fired by artillery.
Land Forces 2024 Young Innovator Award: Tara Penboss, Black Sky industries for contribution to Ultra-Mobile Artillery Rocket System V2.0. A fourth award for the person who best mastered the art of the pitch on the day, was also presented. The winner, voted unanimously by the judging panel was: Best Pitch Award: Katie Donaldson, Praxis for tactical solar – Advanced Composite Solar panels for land, sea and air.
iMotiv at the 2024 Land Forces Expo –Entering the Defence Industry
By Peter Whitlock (iMotiv Managing Director)
The iMotiv leadership team attended the 2024 Land Forces expo for some insight into how organisations enter the defence industry.
Our engineering services organisation is highly capable within the automotive industry, so we believe the defence industry could also benefit from this engineering expertise and experience. Therefore, our goal was to learn and understand how Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) like iMotiv can transition and enable themselves to be industry ready.
Entering the defence industry is no easy endeavour, and for good reason, given the nature of the industry’s importance to national security. However, there is fantastic services now available from the Office of Defence Industry Support (ODIS) to support businesses that want to enter the industry.
Utilising experienced personnel from all aspects of the defence force, ODIS has specialists in each state that guide businesses to the right tools and advice that puts them in a position to consider industry opportunities.
In conjunction, the Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) initiative is another important service that helps businesses ensure they minimise security risks and raise their level of security. Organisations seeking to partner with defence have an obligation to contribute to the security of defence personnel, information and assets. Therefore, the DISP program supports
businesses to understand and meet these obligations.
Our iMotiv team also left the expo with a clear message of how important it is to understand your organisation’s ‘value proposition’ for the defence industry.
Our engineering specialities in automotive revolve around Aftersales Engineering and Quality. These services are also important to defence, but different terminology is used, such as Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) and Sustainability.
Essentially, it’s all about making sure the product can be supported and serviced throughout its lifecycle of use. Therefore, iMotiv is looking for opportunities to provide services within ILS to prime and sub-prime organisations within defence.
During the expo, we came across a number of previous work colleagues from the automotive industry in days gone by. It was fantastic to see so many talented automotive engineers make the shift to the defence industry in a variety of roles. Those organisations have found a real benefit in hiring ex-automotive industry engineers, given their wide breadth and depth of engineering knowledge, capabilities and ‘working fast’ mentality.
Overall, the 2024 Land Forces expo was a terrific event and iMotiv was proud to see so much of Australia’s engineering talent on show.
Work 4.0 and the need for Boundary-Spanning
Ronald C Beckett* Swinburne University of Technology
•
Corresponding author
INTRODUCTION
The accelerating introduction of cyber-physical systems and data analytics is changing the way business and work is done, including what kinds of information systems are needed and how they are developed.
A Gennan study of the impact of digital transformation on professions (W4.0, 2017) referred to ‘Reimagining Work - Work 4.0’. By way of example, it was noted that the proportion of the global population with mobile phones exceeded the proportion with access to other assets like electricity, running water or cars, facilitating new ways of working.
Six challenges were identified. Three related to societal influences: employment effects, flexible work arrangements and company organization structures (e.g. network forms of organization and agile operations).
Three related to technological influences: digital platforms facilitating access to new markets and new forms of work, ‘Industry 4.0’ and human-machine interaction, and ‘Big Data’ that may facilitate decision making provided matters of data integrity and security are addressed.
In an earlier study (Beckett and Daberkow, 2019) we had also noted the influence of agile practices on the nature of work, and taking an employer viewpoint (e.g. Meredith et al, 2019), had considered new competency set requirements.
Whilst some of these related to knowledge about emergent technologies, others related to the ability to use new kinds of tools, to boundaryspanning capabilities, and to the ability to creatively adapt to changing work environments.
Our research question is: how might boundary spanning capabilities be characterised and what implementation issues might emerge in practice?
In this practitioner-oriented exploratory study we start by considering the topic of boundaryspanning capabilities and the use of associated tools that are viewed as boundary objects. We subsequently compare ideas from the literature with practitioner agile project experience in two different environments.
SOME OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LITERATURE: BOUNDARY-SPANNING CAPABILITIES AND BOUNDARY OBJECTS
We draw boundaries to sharpen our focus on things within the boundary: our family, our region, or our community of practice, but this can lead to a myopic world-view. Regardless of where the boundary is drawn, we are embedded on a large community, and the management of interactions across boundaries can be complex.
Vashist et al (2014) have noted that
the business analyst role emerged as a mechanism to address concerns about a gap between technical IT staff and users in developing information systems.
Along with others, they noted that spanning that gap provides an opportunity for all parties to learn and “more effectively interact with their constituents”. Two learning domains were identified.
The first was described as a socio-spatial domain where boundary-spanners have to be accepted as both user and IT staff representative. This domain is strongly associated with the application of personal competencies.
The second was an instrumental developmental domain where documents and collaboration tools helped reach common wider standings. In the boundary spanning literature these are referred to a boundary objects, which we will discuss further later.
Boundary-Spanning Roles and Competencies for IS Development and Deployment
From a study of 136 IS projects in a global firm, Fisk et al (2010) showed that boundaryspanning roles positively influenced success. They characterised such roles as ambassador, coordinator and scout. Enactment of these roles helped provide access to business, technical and business information systems competence sets within and external to the team. Successful teams could accumulate experience related to language usage, business network connections, business contacts and cross organizational activities (described as an acculturation process).
Prifti et al (2017) undertook a combined literature review and focus group study of new and traditional competencies required in a Work 4.0 environment. They considered information system, computer science and engineering competencies that were applied to the development and support of operational systems.
The most commonly mentioned competency sets were firstly, communicating with people, secondly technology affinity, big data and problem-solving, and thirdly life-long learning and working in interdisciplinary environments. Eight generic competency sets with a total of 20 subtier competency dimensions were identified. Some technology dimensions showed computer science - engineering overlaps and some showed computer science - information systems overlap. An IIBA (2018) study identified three different kinds of extended roles a business analyst might be expected to undertake in a digital world context:
• Strategist - Focuses on digital strategy and business outcome;
ABSTRACT
The evolution of a digital world driven by and generating substantial volumes of data is also changing the way people work and associated specializations, characterised as ‘Work 4.0’ in Europe. Smart devices and the use of data analytics is getting work done more effectively but new skills are needed to develop and use these tools. Agility is a requisite capability.
Different communities of practice need to work together, possibly with new kinds of users, introducing a need for enhanced boundary spanning skills and tools.
Boundary-spanning activities take place at multiple organisational levels. Teams use boundary object tools as alignment mechanisms, but also create boundary objects (e.g. prototypes) to test alignment.
Case observations from agile IS projects associated with large and small firms highlight the influence of context, a need for the use of multiple complementary boundary objects and for learning to use them effectively.
Keywords
Work 4.0, Boundary Spanning, Competency Sets, Boundary Objects
• Specialised - Utilises in-depth technology competencies to implement and validate digital goals; and
• Renaissance Professional - Crossfunctional role that cuts across multiple disciplines (e.g. Product Manager/BA).
Levina and Vaast (2005) observed that whilst boundary spanning activities may be formally nominated as an aspect of a job description, there are three conditions for an agent (nominated or not) to become a boundary spanner in practice.
The requisite competencies were firstly, an ability to develop and maintain social capital, secondly have a high legitimacy as both a participant and as a negotiator, and thirdly have a personal interest in spanning boundaries.
IS Boundary Objects
Fox (2011) described boundary objects as “entities that enhance the capacity of an idea, theory or practice to translate across culturally defined boundaries, for example between communities of knowledge or practice.”
He observed that: “it was the active work of participants that made the boundary object effective”. This suggests boundary objects may be viewed as both a resource and an outcome of a boundary-spanning activity.
In their foundation work Star and Griesmer (1989: 410-411) provided the following examples of boundary objects as resources:
• Repositories indexed in a standard fashion, enabling access by people from differing
Tanvria Daberkow The Reinvention Network
communities of knowledge or practice (for example, a library catalogue).
• An ideal type, representation or abstraction that is ‘good enough’ to serve different communities (for example, a blueprint or circuit diagram) even though it lacks detail.
• Coincident boundaries: an object whose boundaries are the same for different communities, although the content that is bounded differs (for example, a map that summarises political or natural features of a landscape).
• A standardised form that can be completed by actors within differing knowledge communities.
In studying the use of boundary objects in computer supported collaborative work, Lee (2007) observed that the original boundary object concepts evolved in a relatively stable project environment.
Their study of a more uncertain, complex case suggested that ‘each type of artifact is entangled in a mesh of practices’ brought to the project via the prior experience of individual team members. Individual team members proposed and created different kinds of boundary negotiating objects including physical artifacts.
Some Matters of Context
From a review of literature, Marrone (2010) noted that boundary-spanning activities may take place in different contexts at an organizational, team and team member level and there were specific kinds of antecedents and specific kinds of targeted outcomes associated with each level.
They viewed organizational level activity as a network level bringing together different professional interests. Higher-level antecedents may also support lower-level boundary-spanning, e.g. a network providing linkages a team may draw on. Achieving lowerlevel goals may support the achievement of a variety of higher-level goals.
Team member contributions should also be considered. Marrone (20 l 0) had suggested that boundary spanning was characterised by three kinds of activity:
1. Representation of the views / requirements of the parties involved (an ambassador role). Sub-tier activities were identified based on the work of Ancona and Caldwell (1992) who also
suggested that for effective outcomes the representation activities had to be linked with coordination activities.
2. Coordination of task requirements (a coordinator role), which included helping to share specialist domain knowledge and team member knowledge, supporting the use of boundary objects as tools, and adaptation and learning consistent with the project goals.
3. General Information Searching (a scout role). Whilst this is an important activity, Ancona and Caldwell (1992) observed that undue emphasis on it could detract from overall team performance.
In summary, we observe there are three generic boundary spanning activities, but each one has sub-components and there are interactions between them.
Boundary spanning activities in action
We constructed an IDEF(O) functional model (figure 1) of these activities (e.g. Beckett, 2015; Li and Du, 2015) to show how they supported desired project outputs and identified the nature of linkages between the sub-tier elements.
Project goal and project acceptance criteria were represented as activity rules/constraints. Clients, the team, individual team members, subject matter experts and boundary objects were represented as resources.
The activity hierarchy emerging from this modeling where requisite sub-tier activities were identified with reference to the literature (Ancona and Caldwell, 1992; Marrone, 2010) is shown in figure 2.
Some background research was also done to map boundary-spanning application competencies in a work 4.0 environment drawing on both industry and academic sources.
Whilst space does not permit elaboration of that study, we observe that specific competencies could be associated with each of the figure 1 activities.
SOME OBSERVATIONS FROM PRACTICE
Drawing on our project involvement as practitioners, direct observations of agile development project boundary-spanning practice were accumulated from two sources over periods of several months in each case:
1. Three projects in different large business units within the finance sector. Two involved one team and the other involved multiple teams. All business units were pursuing agile principles, but were at different stages of maturity and had utilised different adoption strategies. One project involved a transition from a historical platform to an on-line tool. Another was a large project to establish an internet sales tool to replace an existing system. The third involved the customization of a vendor application for streamlining knowledge-oriented internal business processes.
2. Forty micro-projects linking small
Ronald C Beckett
Ron Beckett has more than 25 years’ experience in aerospace R&D and manufacturing management plus more than 10 years’ experience in innovation management consulting.
He is an Engineers Australia Fellow and an Adjunct Professor at the Swinburne University of Technology.
He has contributed more than 150 articles related to entrepreneurship, innovation and knowledge management. His Doctorate was about the practicalities of implementing learning organisation concepts in an industry setting, based on the principle of ‘Learning to Compete’. Mr Beckett has been involved in industry –academia collaborations for some 20 years and has served as a board member of two Cooperative Research Centres and has been a member of an Australian Government expert panel that reviewed CRC operations and proposals for new ones.
He has been a board member of a distance learning organisation and of a manufacturing industry technology transfer not-for-profit enterprise.
business client firms with IT Masters student project teams utilizing agile project management practices. There were commonly two types of project undertaken, but in all cases an as-is and to-be situation had to be developed. The most common could be described as a research project where a client wanted to explore the potential application of a new technology like blockchain and other digital age technologies / techniques. These clients, who supported multiple projects, were commonly small specialist consulting firms who had their own client’s interests in mind. The activities undertaken could be viewed as examples of the Strategist and Specialist. Business analyst roles referred to in IIBA (2018). The second kind of project involved coding to produce prototype software, some being developed as smart-phone apps. The clients here were most commonly small service sector firms. Observations were accumulated using JIRA Cloud where each project was described as an epic having associated user stories and issues.
Figure l. A representation of an IDEFO modeling element
This provided each observation with a unique ID and the researchers could add clarifications and discuss each entry via associated comments. For analysis purposes, extracted data were tabulated in the context of figure 1 (which had been derived from the literature) with rows for ambassador, coordinator and scout roles and columns representing boundary-spanning activities and boundary object use.
Boundary-spanning activities supported the projects in different ways. Each entry in the table could be linked back to source observations using the associated JIRA ID. In the large company cases a business analyst performed boundary spanning activities, sometimes in conjunction with a product manager.
This could be viewed as an example of the Renaissance Professional role referred to in IIBA (2018). In one of those cases a co-located team was established.
In the other cases the teams had distributed internal and external members, which influenced both team dynamics and the nature of the representation and coordination activities undertaken.
User stories and user acceptance test plans were the most common type of client-team boundary objects. However, the need for supplementary objects was recognised (shared repositories, overarching business requirements descriptions, responsibility maps and MVP descriptions).
Microsoft Teams was used as an on-line collaboration tool, and the business units provided access to subject matter experts as required, sometimes being provided with requisite logic in Excel spreadsheets.
In the small company cases a WIL coordinator was the boundary spanner, supporting all projects. Individual client microprojects were formulated first.
Subsequently client context and unresolved issues were shared with the teams and viceversa. The student academic program was organised as a series of ‘sprints’ simulating agile management where template-based team reports signed off by the client had to be submitted every few weeks, representing a kind of boundary object.
Other boundary objects were firstly, a one- page storyboard providing project organizational and IT context, goals completed in conjunction with the client before a project was started and secondly user stories. Clients were generally not familiar with the user story idea and needed help in their development. Teams undertaking research studies had some difficulty working with user stories. Software development teams were often provided with client knowledge in Excel spreadsheets.
The teams also felt a need for additional boundary objects such as use case diagrams. The teams had access to an online collaboration tool that included a record repository (Basecamp) but uptake was variable.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Different communities of practice need to work together, possibly with new kinds of users in a Work 4.0 environment, introducing a need for enhanced boundary-spanning skills and tools. Agility is a requisite capability.
Our research question was: how might boundary spanning capabilities be characterised and what implementation issues might emerge in practice?
We contribute to the literature by representing capabilities as a set of interlinked activities shown in figure 1, with three primary functions: ambassador, coordinator and scout each having 3 - 5 associated sub-factions.
A study of related competencies was initiated, but space does not permit the representation of findings here. The literature review also indicated that teams use boundary object tools such as user stories as alignment mechanisms, but also create boundary objects (e.g. prototypes) to test alignment.
We drew on our experience as practitioners with five cases to consider potential implementation issues. Case observations from agile IS projects associated with large and small firms highlighted the influence of context on boundary spanning activities (goal clarity, team characteristics, team member mutual understandings) consistent with the literature, plus a need to use multiple complementary boundary objects (e.g. user stories plus minimum viable product requirements) and for learning to use them effectively.
This is a topic for further research. In some cases where client requirements were unclear to the team, the ambassador function was most important in forming a bridge.
In other cases, particularly when timing and synchronization was important, the coordinator function was more dominant. In one case where options for potential ‘to-be’ scenarios had to be developed, the scout function was more dominant.
The relative importance of the three functions could vary as a project progresses, requiring flexibility on the part of the boundary spanner(s).
REFERENCES
• Ancona, D. G. & Caldwell, D. F. (1992). Bridging the boundary: external activity and performance in organizational teams, Administrative Science Quarterly, 37(4), 634-665
Beckett, R.C (2015) Ftmctional System Maps as Boundary Objects in Complex System Development. International Journal of Agile Systems and Management. 8 (1) 53 - 69 Beckett, R. C., & Daberkow, T. (2019). Work 4.0 and the Identification of Complex Competence St:ts. MWAIS 2019 Proceedings 33. https:/ / aisel.aisnet.org/mwais2019/33
• Fisk, A., Berente, N., & Lyytinen, K. (2010). Boundary Spanning Competencies and Infonnation System Development Project Success. In ICIS (p. 96)
• Fox, N. J. (2011). Boundary objects, social meanings and the success of new technologies. Sociology. 45(1), 70-85
• IIBA (2018) Digital Business Analysis: essential competencies for success. International Institute of Business Analysis http://go.iiba. org/l/590871/2018-12-08/9bkkx
• Lee, C. P. (2007). Boundary negotiating artifacts: Unbinding the routine of boundary objects and embracing chaos in collaborative work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 16(3), 307-339.
• Levina, N and Vaast, E (2005) The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice: Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2, Special Issue on Information Technologies and Knowledge Management (Jun., 2005), pp. 335-363
• Li, K., & Du, T. C. (2015). Building a boundaryspanning service for coopetition. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(22), 8413-8422.
• Marrone, J. A. (2010) Team Boundary Spanning: A Multilevel Review of Past Research And Proposals for the Future. Journal of Management, 36 (4) 911 - 940
• Meredith, P., Summons, P., Park, M., & Cheek, B. (2019) What do Employers expect from Business Analysts and is it captured by the “Business Analysis Body of Knowledge”(BABOK)?. Paper 175 Australasian Conference on Information Systems Meredith, Perth Western Australia
• Prifti, L., Knigge. M., Kienegger, H. and Krcmar, H., 2017. A Competency Model for” Industrie 4.0” Employees. Wirtschaftsinfommtik, University of St Gallan, Switzerland, February 12 15
• Star, S.L and Griesemer, J.R (1989) Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1989), pp. 387-420
• Vashist,R; McKay, J; and Marshall, (2010) The Roles and Practices of Business Analysts: A Boundary Practice Perspective. ACIS 2010 Proceedings. Paper 50.
• W4.0 (2017) Re-Imagining Work. Work 4.0 White Paper. German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. https://www.bmas.de/EN/ Services/Pub1ications/a883-white-paper.html
Figure 2. A hierarchy of activities involved in team-level boundary spanning
On a Jaunt
More than 20 experienced automotive engineers, including quite a number of custom vehicle builders, travelled to Scoresby, Victoria to see how vehicle manufacturer Jaunt converts its vehicles to electric power.
Jaunt is celebrating its 5th anniversary, with the company steadily developing and experiencing growth through demand for electric conversion of iconic cars. There are now 18 people employed, with the possibility of further growth.
Jaunt’s CEO and co-founder, David Budge, was named one of Australia’s Top 100 Innovators in 2024 by The Australian newspaper.
Jaunt was co-founded by David and Martine Budge who kindly opened their doors to conduct a very informative seminar on EV conversions for the SAE-A.
David’s background includes working on electric vehicles and working with the Electric Mobility Manufacturers of Australia.
Jaunt’s first build took several years as it was a learning and development process. This has been streamlined and now takes weeks or months depending on the complexity of the work to be completed.
A wide range of ‘work-in-progress’ vehicles were on display, and as David spoke, he led us through the conversion stages as demonstrated on actual cars.
Surprisingly, the EV conversion message was more about restraint than large upgrades in acceleration or straight-line speed. Jaunt is about breathing new life into older classics, in particular Land Rovers of the ’60s and ’70s, swapping petrol and diesel engines and fuel tanks for electric drive and batteries.
Jaunt has also developed packages for older Minis and Porsche 911s all with full
warranty, road-registered and turn-key drive away regardless of the State in which you live in Australia, as Jaunt will work through the different regulations for engineering and roadworthiness certificates.
This is all performed under the guidance of VSP14 (what is that?), thus ensuring compliance with all relevant ADRs applicable to modified older vehicles.
We saw a 1960s VW Microbus/Kombi and an International Scout, a Range Rover, a ’59 Corvette, a stainless Mini Moke among others in various stages of conversion.
When converting an older Land Rover in particular, there is a substantial performance boost, so brake systems are upgraded, usually resulting in disc front brakes being fitted. Often the customer will ask for a complete restoration of the body concurrent with the conversion, resulting in a very complete vehicle restoration. There is a deliberate effort made to ensure that the driving experience is enjoyable and, in many cases, improved with better steering and throttle response, upgraded suspension and brakes, there is also the option to include modern additions like cruise control to cars that pre-dated those systems.
Some vehicles then become the customer’s
everyday transport. David is surprised at times with the mileage customers put on their “new” vehicle, and this is largely because the converted car is so much more enjoyable to use.
Lighting and electrical problems are a thing of the past. These were once the bane of a Land Rover owner’s life, and a Jaunt conversion always involves a replacement/upgrade of the vehicle wiring harness, resulting in very consistent electrics.
We were impressed with how coordinated the conversion workshop is despite how many “variants” there are, and just how impressive they can look in a new paint livery.
The battery test laboratory was truly impressive. Electrical specialist Aaron explained how EV battery packs have evolved, with proliferation of pack external designs, and battery pack architecture (one or two packs per vehicle).
Packs come to Jaunt in a “Plug-and-Play” configuration, even though there is generally no standardised pack, cell or BMS approach in EVs. In this regard, some coordination may need to be implemented, but for the present in the current EV market, there are often as many battery packs as vehicle models, and it looks like even more proliferation is ahead.
The donor vehicle’s starting condition and specification largely determines the timeframe and cost, the latter generally around $150K. It’s hard to put an exact figure on a conversion as sometimes the owner will want to also upgrade the interior or change other components.
Government Reviews Affecting the Automotive Industry
With a Federal election scheduled for 2025, the Federal Government has been active in reviewing policy and legislation affecting the automotive industry. This includes:
• Consumer Guarantees & Supplier Indemnification Under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL); and
• A Licencing Regime Under the Franchising Code of Conduct (Code).
Consumer Guarantees & Supplier Indemnification Under ACL
In October 2024 the Federal Government released a consultation paper on Improving Consumer Guarantees and Supplier Indemnification Provisions Under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The Consultation Paper sought stakeholder feedback on a range of options to improve proposed civil prohibitions and penalties for breaches of the consumer guarantees and supplier indemnification provisions of the ACL including the introduction of civil prohibitions and penalties to:
• prohibit suppliers from refusing to provide a remedy specified by the consumer for a major failure under the consumer guarantees;
• prohibit manufacturers from not indemnifying suppliers when requested; and
• make it unlawful for a manufacturer to retaliate against a supplier for seeking indemnification following a consumer guarantees failure.
The Consultation Paper observed that there is a substantial body of evidence that many consumers are finding it difficult to obtain remedies from suppliers and manufacturers for consumer guarantees failures, with the 2023 Australian Consumer Survey finding that 31 per cent of surveyed consumers have not had their problem resolved, while of the 69 per cent of those whose issues were resolved, a third of those were not satisfied with the resolution. The survey also highlighted that only 23 per cent of consumers were able to resolve their problem directly with the relevant business. Of the consumer guarantee-related contacts received by the ACCC, most contacts related to motor vehicles (24 percent).
For high-value goods such as motor vehicles, many consumers who experience faults with their new or used vehicle can find it difficult to obtain a remedy for a consumer guarantees failure. The reasons for this include:
• difficulty understanding the processes involved in making a complaint;
• the time-consuming and costly application process for pursuing a complaint through a court or tribunal; and
• the cost and difficulty in gathering evidence that a tribunal will accept, such as expert reports.
With regard to supplier indemnification, the Consultation Paper observed that currently, manufacturers are not subject to a penalty if they fail to indemnify their supplier where the manufacturer is at fault for the consumer guarantees failure or retaliate against suppliers who seek indemnification for remedies provided to consumers following a consumer guarantees failure where the manufacturer is at fault. A motor vehicle dealer who sells a vehicle to a consumer is a ‘supplier’ for the purposes of the ACL.
A consumer’s right to a consumer guarantees remedy from a supplier is separate from the supplier’s right to receive indemnification from the manufacturer. However, the difficulty and uncertainty faced by suppliers in securing reimbursement from the manufacturer could contribute to consumers not receiving the remedies they are entitled to.
The submissions for the Consultation Paper closed on 14 November 2024.
Licencing Regime Under the Code
In November 2024, the Federal Government sought public submissions on the consideration of a licensing regime for the franchising sector. The call for submissions followed the Federal Government’s release on 8 February 2024 of the Independent Review of the Franchising Code of Conduct (Review), conducted by Dr Michael Schaper.
Recommendation 23 of the Review stated that a licensing regime may provide a more efficient and effective way to address persistent issues in the sector, without necessarily imposing a greater degree of complexity or regulatory burden than the current Code. Such a system would ordinarily require government authority to approve (or licence) a franchisor to be able to conduct business. This may assist to overcome some of the perceived shortcomings under the current Code where, for example, enforcement action can only occur after a breach has occurred.
Dr Schaper’s review went on to say that the introduction of a licensing regime would establish obligations on potential licensees before they can engage in a regulated activity. If a licence holder breaches the terms of their licence, the regulator would then be able to immediately halt the licence holder’s engagement in the regulated activity.
The proposed licensing regime for the franchising sector also covers dispute resolution under the Code. In particular, the Code makes it mandatory for the parties to participate in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and genuinely try to resolve the dispute in good faith.
The Review stated that while stakeholders were generally supportive of the Code’s process for dispute resolution, some concern remains about
Evan Stents
Mr Stents acts for a broad range of clients in the automotive industry including motor vehicle dealers, component producers, automotive service providers, aftermarket providers and automotive industry group associations including AADA, MTAA and VACC.
He regularly provides thought leadership in the automotive sector, publishes articles and speaks at industry conferences in Australia and overseas.
Mr Stents holds a degree in Arts, an Honours degree in Law and a Masters degree in Commercial Law.
Lead Partner - Automotive Industry Group HWL Ebsworth Lawyers www. hwlebsworth.com.au
the cost, timeliness and awareness of these existing processes.
The Code also outlines the use of arbitration as a method of ADR, but only through written agreement of both parties. Arbitration is a more formal dispute resolution process that resolves the dispute through a binding determination. However, the Review observed that licensing regime could require licensees to participate in mandatory binding arbitration as a term of their licence.
One of the questions posed by the Government review was whether the current dispute resolution framework under the Code offer meaningful, timely and cost-effective dispute resolution?
The closing date for submissions for the consideration of a licensing regime for the franchising sector was 8 December 2024.
The introduction of a licensing regime for the Code and changes to the indemnification provisions of the ACL can have far reaching and impactful outcomes to the operations of motor vehicle distributors and dealers in the Australian automotive industry. This is because all motor vehicle dealerships and their distributors are covered by the Code and are exposed to ACL claims on a regular basis. The outcome of these reviews will therefore be carefully studied by automotive industry participants so as to understand the full extent of their implications to their operations and the industry in general.
Ada Lin1,*
1 New Business Solutions, Lexus Australia, 155 Bertie St. Port Melbourne VIC 3127
* Corresponding author: ada.lin@toyota.com.au
Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems Research within the AIMES Environment
1. Introduction
Each year more than 1,100 road users lose their lives across Australia, and around 40,000 are admitted to hospital. Innovative approaches to road rule enforcement, driver behaviour, driver assistance, vehicle design and road design have reduced the harm caused by road crashes, particularly those of high severity.
Many countermeasures have addressed the protection of vehicle occupants and, more recently, the avoidance of crashes. The rollout of technologies that sense and ameliorate imminent crash risks is now receiving considerable attention with the advent of advanced sensing, connectivity and automation. Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) allow vehicles to communicate with roadside infrastructure through vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), with a cloud-based central facility through vehicle-to-network (V2N) and with other vehicles through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), communications. Based on C-ITS messages exchanged, drivers are presented with safety alerts about immediate and upcoming hazards (Figure 1). C-ITS increase the drivers’ situational awareness to put them in the best position to react to safety risks.
Austroads found that if C-ITS technology was deployed in Australia at scale, a reduction in fatalities of up to 23% and injuries of 28% could potentially be achieved [1]. Production vehicles have been equipped with C-ITS in markets such as Japan since October 2015. Toyota/Lexus has sold more than 250,000 vehicles across 19 models (as of September 2021) equipped with C-ITS technology - “ITS Connect”. A 2019 survey of ITS Connect customers indicated that over 70% of them found it helpful, especially where line-of-sight was obscured [2].
Australian Integrated Multimodal EcoSystem (AIMES) is a real-world platform for testing and demonstrating emerging connected transport technologies in complex urban environments in Carlton, Victoria. It incorporates over 100 kilometres of Melbourne road network, where partner organisations have been installing diverse technologies for sensing, connecting, visualising and analysing mobility systems since 2015.
In 2021, Lexus Australia developed and evaluated C-ITS safety applications (also called use cases) in the AIMES precinct to study the effectiveness of applying C-ITS in Australia.
2. AIMES Use Cases
For AIMES, the following V2I/V2N use cases were verified:
• Advanced Red-Light Warning (ARLW): alerts drivers to a risk of a red-light signal violation unless they apply the brakes
• Turn Warning Vulnerable Road User (TWVR): alerts drivers to a pedestrian crossing during the permitted phase
• Road Hazard Warning (RHW): alerts drivers to hazards, such as debris or water on the road or a crash
• Back-of-Queue Warning (BoQ): alerts drivers to a traffic jam
ABSTRACT
AIMES ecosystem provides a real-world platform for collaborative trials based on the streets of Melbourne to test integrated transport technology to deliver safer, cleaner and more sustainable urban transport outcomes. Lexus Australia conducted Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) research within the AIMES ecosystem, including the development and demonstration of vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-network (V2N) and vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) safety applications (also called use cases). V2I safety applications involve direct communication between C-ITS vehicles and roadside units that broadcast live signal status and road geometry information of the intersections to alert drivers to the risk of violating red-light signal and running into pedestrians/ cyclists crossing during the permitted phase. V2N safety applications include long-range communications with a cloud-based central facility to alert drivers to road hazards, traffic jams, and roadworks and provide drivers with information about static or variable speed limits. The extension of V2V on communication with emergency service vehicles and public transport vehicles allows sharing of awareness messages between different vehicle types. Notifying drivers of the stationary and approaching emergency service vehicles can assist in avoiding collisions and shorten travel time for ambulances. Tram awareness alerts and tram passenger warnings can potentially mitigate vehicle collisions with trams and passengers, enhancing public transportation’s efficiency and safety. This paper discusses the importance, design and evaluation of C-ITS use cases in AIMES and highlights key findings and next steps for C-ITS deployment in Australia.
• Roadworks Warning (RWW): notifies drivers approaching or driving through roadworks zones, providing speed limit
• In-Vehicle Speed (IVS): provides drivers with information about static or variable speed limits.
The following V2V use cases, which enabled communication with emergency service vehicles and public transport vehicles, were newly developed and evaluated:
• Emergency Service Vehicle Notification (ESVN): notifies on the direction of the
Figure 1. C-ITS System Architecture
Figure 2. RSU Installation at Gertrude/Nicholson Intersection
approaching emergency vehicle and instructs drivers to comply with regulatory speed when approaching a stationary emergency vehicle in action
• Tram Awareness Alert (TAA) and Tram Passenger Warning (TPW): alert drivers on approaching trams and passenger disembarkation/embarkation status.
3. Live Traffic Signal Status Integration
The Carlton testbed was set up in cooperation with AIMES stakeholders to enable V2I/V2N use cases. A roadside unit (RSU) was installed at the southern end of the intersection (Figure 2) to allow the transmission of intersection geometry information (map) and traffic light signal status via ITS-G5 (Figure 3).
For testing, the use case parameters were configured to be very conservative so that alerts could be triggered at greater distances from the intersection at low vehicle speeds. Therefore, how the different factors impact the use case timing and accuracy could be investigated whilst ensuring the safety of testers and other road users. However, this would be changed to avoid triggering warnings unnecessarily in a more realistic driving scenario.
ALRW and TWVR alerts were successfully triggered according to the Signal Phase and Timing Extended Message (SPaTEM) broadcasted by RSU. The broadcasted SPaTEMs were in sync with the actual status of the traffic light (Figure 4) that integrated with the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) (Figure 5).
SCATS adapts traffic signal timing in real-time to match the traffic conditions, installed in over 55,000 intersections across 187 cities and 28 countries worldwide [3]. In Australia, there are 15,169 SCATS intersections (as of May 2022).
Whilst more testing and detailed analysis are still underway, the latency for delivering signal status information into the vehicle was obserbed to be negligible. Other factors, such as communicaiton range of the RSU (Appendix A) and vehicle positioning accuracy (Section 6) can also affect the relevece of the driver alerts.
Most recently (September 2022), integration and testing of two more SCATS intersections along Victoria Parade for C-ITS applications were commissioned. For widespread deployment of SCATS integration for C-ITS applications in Australia and beyond, system compatibility and rollout plan shall be investigated further.
4. Emergency Service Vehicle Notification (ESVN)
4.1 Importance of ESVN
Ambulance Victoria (AV) provides emergency medical response for over 5.8 million people across the state. AV has a fleet approaching 1500 vehicles and, in 2021, travelled more than 40 million kilometres responding to over a million cases. In the year 2020-2021, there were 801,984 Triple Zero (000) calls for assistance; more than 80% required emergency response on-road, and others by air [4]. The ambulance response is progressively increasing over the years (Figure 6).
Responding to time-critical emergency cases brings a much higher risk of motor vehicle crashes. That risk is elevated in metropolitan areas where it becomes necessary to cross multiple intersections. Reports on incidents have shown that other road users neither hear nor see the approaching ambulance. Improving public awareness of emergency vehicles to shorten emergency response time has become necessary. Providing in-vehicle warning of an emergency vehicle approaching would encourage the drivers to give way.
In Victoria, Road Safety Road Rule, Part-7, Division-4, Rule 79A [5] states that vehicles should not exceed 40km/h when passing emergency vehicles that are stationary or moving slowly (less than 10km/h). The road rule aims to ensure the safety of emergency service workers performing work on the road or roadside and others at the scene [6]. Providing in-vehicle warning of approaching a slow or stationary emergency service vehicle and instructing speed reduction to regulated speed is intended to encourage the drivers to comply with the road rule.
4.2 ESVN
Use Cases
For vehicle communication with emergency service vehicles, two different use cases were implemented and evaluated (Figure 7). Both targeted to improve the efficiency of ambulance service and increase the safety of the personnel and assets of emergency services:
• Emergency Service Vehicle Awareness Alert: the driver is notified about approaching an emergency service vehicle (ESV) with an active lightbar with its distance and direction.
• Emergency Service Vehicle Slow-Down Alert: the driver is instructed to reduce speed to 40km/h when approaching a slow/stationary ESV on active duty (with lightbar ON).
4.3 ESVN System Setup
Enabling ESVN involved mounting the onboard unit (OBU), the device to enable the vehicleto-vehicle communications, on the roof of ambulance and Lexus vehicles (Figure 8).
Direct vehicle-to-vehicle communication relies on Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) ITS-G5, a standard C-ITS communication protocol defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
Vehicles periodically exchange their status using Cooperative Awareness Message (CAM), which includes parameters such as location, speed, direction, heading and role of the vehicle. In the case of special vehicles such as emergency service vehicles, lightbar and siren information is also a part of CAM.
The ambulance lightbar 12V-DC signal was converted to a digital signal and fully integrated with the OBU. For Lexus vehicles, the safety alerts are presented to the driver via a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) with visual warnings (display an icon with the distance between the vehicle and ESV) and audio warnings (in human speech, such as
Figure 3. ARLW System Architecture
Figure 4. ARLW System Architecture
Figure 6. Number of Emergency Road Responses [4]
Figure 8. ESVN System Architecture
Figure 7. ESVN Use Cases
Figure 5. System Integration of SCATS Intersections
“Caution! Approaching emergency service vehicle. Reduce speed to 40km/h”).
The warning configuration was appropriate without causing driver distraction (Figure 9).
Visual warning with distance information and audio warning with directional information in a human speech made the warning contextual and relevant, keeping the drivers’ focus on the road.
4.4 ESVN System Evaluation
To study the effect of ESVN in the real-world environment, different scenarios, including vehicles approaching each other from different streets and the stationary ambulance scenario, were evaluated.
The directional tests (Figure 10) indicated that the directional alerts with human speech ensured that the driver paid attention to the road and prompted direction. With the tuned parameters that considered driver reaction time and vehicle braking capacity, the alerts were timely and precise, with sufficient time for the driver to react.
The stationary ESV test (Figure 11) indicated that when the vehicle was travelling at different speeds, the alert was triggered based on the speed and distance to the stationary ambulance (Appendix B).
The driver had enough time to safely reduce the speed to the regulatory limit of 40km/h before passing the ESV to ensure the safety of the emergency service personnel working on the road or roadside.
ESVN demonstrated a significant increase in situational awareness amongst the vehicle drivers.
As a result, this could allow the ESV to provide a quicker emergency response by travelling more smoothly in live traffic and reducing incidents involving them. Therefore, ESVN allows for a safer and more efficient working environment for emergency services.
5. Vehicle Communication with Public Transport
5.1 Importance of Vehicle Communication with Trams
Melbourne’s tram network is one of the key public transport systems in the city, and it is the largest in the world, with 250km of double track and over 400 trams of various types in service on a typical weekday and annual pre-covid patronage of around 200 million boardings a year.
Over 70% of the network is shared with other road users. 80% of injuries on public transport in Victoria in 2018 occurred on the tram network. Yarra Trams reported more than 1,100 vehicle-to-tram collisions (97% of the collisions were the fault of motorists) in 2018 [7]. Around 70% of vehicle collisions are due to vehicles merging midblock or U-turning in front of a tram.
These collisions can result in severe damage to the vehicles and severe injuries to the road users (Figure 12). In addition, vehicleto-passenger collisions, in which vehicles pass stationary trams while passengers are boarding or getting off the tram, pose a significant risk.
From 1st July 2014 to 30th June 2019, there were 128 passengers knocked down, some resulting in severe injuries that required emergency response [9].
Enabling trams to communicate with surrounding vehicles to alert drivers of approaching trams and passenger disembarkation/ embarkation status can potentially mitigate vehicle collisions with both trams and passengers, hence enhancing the efficiency and safety of public transportation.
5.2 Tram Awareness Alert (TAA) and Tram Passenger Warning (TPW) Use Cases
TAA alerts the driver when the vehicle is turning across the tram tracks while a tram is approaching from behind (Figure 13, top) under the following conditions:
1. the turn indicator signal is active, which can be determined by monitoring internal vehicle signals or
2. the vehicle is in a dedicated-turn lane, which is determined by comparing the vehicle’s location with map content containing road geometry and lane configuration.
TPW alerts the driver when the vehicle is approaching a stationary tram at a tram stop, where passengers are disembarking or embarking (Figure 13, bottom).
For this trial, whether the tram is currently disembarking or embarking passengers is determined based on the status of tram doors (open or closed).
5.3 TAA and TPW System Setup
The two applications are primarily based on vehicle-to-vehicle communication via ITS-G5. As shown in Figure 14, the tram broadcasts a Cooperative Awareness Message (CAM), including location, heading and speed information, and embarkationStatus field (based on information about the door status).
The map containing road geometry and lane configuration information is delivered through Map Data Extended Messages (MAPEM) via ITS-G5 from a roadside station
Figure 10. ESV Awareness Alert
Figure 11. Approaching a Slow/Stopped ESV
Figure 14. TAA and TPW System Architecture
Figure 13. TAA (top) and TPW (bottom) Use Cases
Figure 9. Example ESVN driver alerts – ESV on the left
Figure 12. Vehicle-to-Tram Collisions at Bridge Road (Left) and St. Kilda Road (Right) [8]
or cellular connection from a cloud-based central facility.
This project benefitted from an earlier project funded by the Victorian Government Department of Transport under the Smarter Journeys Program [10] in 2018, where 29 B-class trams were equipped with OBUs. The existing CAM was updated with an additional data field to show the embarkation status in the tram.
Lexus vehicles are equipped with OBUs to compute the use case algorithms. The driver awareness alerts were presented via the human-machine interface (HMI) (). For TAA, the visual warning is presented with t audio alert “Tram approaching”.
For TPW, the visual alert, including the distance between the tram and the vehicle, is displayed with an audio alert, “Caution, pedestrians”, being played.
5.4 TAA and TPW System Evaluation
The dedicated and structured testing of all applications and scenarios was done during a night testing activity outside of regular tram operating hours, which meant trams could freely move on tracks based on the test scenarios.
In addition, the test area was partially closed off to traffic to enable tram and test vehicle movement in a safe environment and without interference from other traffic participants.
The test was conducted from 1 AM to 4 AM on 7th December 2021 on Lygon Street in Melbourne.
16 shows the closed stretch of road shaded in green. The intersection of Lygon St / Princes St was used for some limited testing but not closed to other traffic.
Following test scenarios were executed during the TAA evaluation:
1. The vehicle activates the right indicator while a tram is approaching from the rear of the vehicle in a neighbouring lane (Figure 17, left)
2. The vehicle enters a dedicated right-turn lane while a tram is approaching from the rear in a neighbouring lane (Figure 17, right).
Both TAA scenarios were successfully triggered (pink paddles).
In this particular test of the vehicle travelling in the right-turn lane, the alert was triggered very early (~150m from the intersection stop bar) where the right turn was not yet possible. In the future, improvement in only showing an alert at a certain distance to the stop bar of the lane based on the vehicle speed can be considered to avoid unnecessarily early warnings. This use case can also be particularly useful for the area where both signals for vehicles and trams can be green simultaneously. For example, at the Lygon St / Princes St intersection (Figure 18) used for this testing, a right-turning vehicle still needs to give way to a tram approaching from behind even though it has a green signal.
The tram passenger warning was successfully triggered when the vehicle approached a stationary tram with its doors open. Figure 19 shows an example of the alert being triggered (shown with red “P” paddles). This application improves the safety of tram passengers when cars and trams are in shared lanes. However, relying solely on the door status to trigger an alert could be too late for a vehicle to stop behind the tram. For future improvement, some foresight into the intention of the tram and its passengers could be useful. This could be achieved by developing a new signal for
a boarding passenger or a passenger stop request to set the embarkation Status field, which should also be crosschecked in the vehicle to the tram location and nearest tram stop to provide relevant alerts.
The successful development and evaluation of TAA and TPW is a big step towards safer roads where public transport and cars are mixed. It not only helps drivers conform to local road rules but can avoid vehicle-to-tram and vehicle-to-passenger collisions.
6. Challenge in Vehicle Positioning Accuracy
C-ITS vehicle uses positioning technology to compute vehicle trajectory (location, speed, and heading), compare it to the location of traffic events and map information, and carry out threat assessment to generate driver safety alerts. Specifically for intersection related use cases, positioning accuracy is critical, as the vehicle needs to determine which lane it is located.
Positioning data was acquired using a dedicated positioning system, which utilises satellite navigation data from multiple global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and further enhanced with corrections from nearby ground reference stations provided through a Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) service (Figure 3). The positioning quality is affected by any obstruction to the vehicles’ view of the sky and connection to satellites.
As shown in Figure 20, different positioning accuracy (RTK modes) are represented with coloured dots: Green (with RTK fixed, correction is applied with optimal results and high confidence), Yellow (RTK float, correction is applied, but the confidence of the correction is not as high) and Red (GNSS only).
Figure
Figure 15. TAA and TPW Driver Alerts
Figure 16. Vehicle/Tram Night-Time Test at Lygon Street
Figure 17. Demonstration of Tram Awareness Alerts
Figure 18. Green signal phase for both tram and vehicles
Figure 19. Demonstration of Tram Passenger Warning
There were differences in the positioning quality at different approaches when driving through the intersection.
For Nicholson St southbound approach, closer to the intersection, the positioning mode is mainly RTK fixed, where the alerts were triggered correctly. However, tree growth on the Carlton Gardens side of the road for the northbound approach obscures a large sky area and prevents satellite signal acquisition.
The positioning system repeatedly switches between different modes, decreasing positioning accuracy and preventing relevant and accurate warning triggers (shown with yellow paddles).
For all C-ITS use cases, system limitations related to the positioning accuracy (Appendix C) of the vehicles can affect the quality of the driver alerts.
7. Conclusion and Next Steps
AIMES offered exciting opportunities to investigate the requirements for the largescale deployment of C-ITS technologies. The integration of roadside infrastructure with live SPaTEM, V2I/V2N in the AIMES precinct, and reliable V2V communication with emergency service public transport vehicles allowed all C-ITS use cases to be verified successfully. This demonstrated an increase in situational awareness amongst vehicle drivers and strong collaboration between governments, industry stakeholders, public service and academic sectors to form the base for a significant step towards safer roads where multi-modal transport and road users are mixed.
Positioning and mapping are essential factors for C-ITS technology, and there should be further studies in these areas. By seeking to integrate real-life traffic events such as live traffic light status and traffic status, all stakeholders have recognised the need for robust, meaningful and current data streams to support use cases.
ESVN is one of the most important safetyrelated C-ITS services to be deployed and can also be extended to other emergency services such as police and fire response. Rolling out the vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology to many traffic participants, not only passenger vehicles but also specialised vehicles like ambulances, fire trucks or police cars, trams and buses, would greatly increase the penetration rate of C-ITS to maximise its benefits. This can be supported by evaluating retrofit solutions for existing long/medium-life assets.
While specific to Victorian legislation, C-ITS use cases may be extended to other states according to individual states’ requirements; national consistency would facilitate quicker and more standardised adoption. The data exchanged between traffic participants via ITS-G5 must be anonymous and authentic. The ITS standards and well-known harmonising platforms like C-Roads in Europe already define several security requirements and governance specifications. Similarly, these need to be deployed and evaluated in Australia. As C-ITS development and rollout progress, collaborations between government and industry must be continued to define the data requirements and systems to support C-ITS and the broader management and optimisation of transport networks. Representatives should be nominated to lead harmonisation in Australia to ensure smooth deployment and interoperability across the nation.
Refer to the public white papers [11] for more comprehensive details.
Appendix A – ITS-G5 Communication Range
The range of ITS-G5 short-range communication message reception is affected by obstacles that impede line-of-sight communication between the RSU and Lexus vehicles.
At Gertrude/Nicholson intersection, the RSU was installed at the Southern end of the intersection (Figure 21). The building at the intersection’s southeast corner limited the communication range on Gertrude St. Compared to both Nicholson St approaches, the range in Gertrude Street was almost halved (150 meters). In this case, the communication range is likely to be sufficient. However, the location of the RSU installation must be carefully selected to optimise communication range in all directions.
Appendix B – ESVN Alert Distance at Different Vehicle Speed
The aambulance was determined to be stationary when its vehicle speed reported in the CAM was less than 3km/h. When the Lexus vehicle approached the ambulance at the speed of 60, 80 and 100km/h, the alert was triggered at different distances accordingly (Figure 22).
Figure 21. ITS-G5 Range
Figure 20. Nicholson St Southbound (Top)/ Northbound (Bottom) Positioning Accuracy
Appendix C – Positioning Accuracy
The positioning system is paramount to any C-ITS-enabled vehicle to save lives, as positioning accuracy is critical for delivering accurate and contextual safety warnings to the driver.
With this study, positioning performance in the local environment, where Lexus Vehicles operate in AIMES, were identified. Figure 23 shows the heat map of the positioning accuracy in the Carlton neighbourhood and Melbourne CBD. The heat map provides a high-level overview of positioning errors (Green: 0-30cm, Amber: 30cm-3m, Red: more than 3m) seen by the vehicles to determine the quality of C-ITS warnings presented to the driver. In other words, this information can be used to determine the reason for particular false positives or missing alerts due to positioning errors. Compared to Carlton, in Central Business District (CBD), where there are tall buildings and tree cover, the positioning accuracy was at its lowest when the antennas were obscured from receiving line-of-sight satellite signals. Conversely, the accuracy was high when there was no obstruction.
In addition to the environmental factors,
positioning accuracy varies when receivers with different brands and grades are used. While line-of-sight satellite signals were obscured, dead reckoning, a technique to estimate the current position based on a previously determined position, can be applied. An Inertial Navigation System (INS) uses rotation and acceleration information from an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to compute a relative position over time. The following figure shows the positioning result when using a receiver unit with tactical grade IMU (Figure 24); high positioning accuracy was achieved throughout.
Using an INS-based GNSS receiver with RTK configuration and connecting to an RTK correction service that can dynamically connect to the nearest reference stations would offer the best positioning capability to deliver appropriate driver alerts. Positioning and other enabling technologies will evolve between now and any prospective implementation in vehicles for Australia. Deeper integration with existing vehicle systems and advanced driver assistance systems will lead to greater accuracy of information presented to the driver and minimise false warnings.
References
[1] David B. Logan, Kristie Young, Trevor Allen and Tim Horberry (2017). Safety Benefits of Cooperative ITS and Automated Driving in Australia and New Zealand, Austroads Research Report. AP-R551-17.
[2] Toyota Motor Corporation (2021). TOYOTA ITS Web Exhibition 2021 -V2X-. https://www.toyota.co.jp/its/ en/2021/
[3] Transport for NSW (2022). SCATS and Intelligent Transport Systems. https://www.scats.nsw.gov.au/
[4] Ambulance Victoria (2021). Ambulance Victoria Annual Report 2020-21. https://www.ambulance.vic.gov. au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ Ambulance-Victoria-AnnualReport-2020-21.pdf
[5] Road Safety Road Rules 2017 S.R. No. 41/2017 Authorised Version incorporating amendments as of 4th November 2020 (Authorised Version No. 009)
[6] Victoria State Government (2021). Law enforcement & emergency vehicles. https://www.vicroads.vic.gov. au/safety-and-road-rules/road-rules/ato-z-of-road-rules/law-enforcementand-emergency-vehicles
[7] Victoria State Government (2022). Tram collisions on the rise. https:// transport.vic.gov.au/about/transportnews/news-archive/tram-collisionson-the-rise
[10] Victoria State Government (2017-01). Grants, Trials and Partnerships.
[11] Lexus Australia et al., (2021). Enabling Infrastructure to Vehicle Communication for Safety Applications of Connected Vehicles in Carlton, Victoria – Initial Test; Enabling Emergency Service Vehicle to Vehicle Communication for Safety Applications in Australia; Enabling Public Transport to Vehicle Communication for Safety Applications in Melbourne, Victoria. The University of Melbourne https:// eng.unimelb.edu.au/industry/aimes
Figure 22.ESVN alert triggering at different vehicle speeds
Figure 23. Position Accuracy in Carlton Area and Melbourne CBD
Figure 24. Position Accuracy of Receiver with Tactical Grade IMU
