Swinburne secures national funding to boost heavy vehicle safety with real-time hazard detection

Australia’s freight industry moves millions of tonnes of goods each year, but heavy vehicles continue to face preventable risks from low bridges, overhanging trees and temporary structures. A new Swinburne University of Technology project aims to reduce those dangers through advanced real-time sensing technology.

The Swinburne research team, including Distinguished Professor Saeid Nahavandi, Professor Hadi Ghaderi, Dr Adetokunbo Arogbonlo, Professor Chee Peng Lim, Associate Professor Hailing Zhou, Professor Christopher McCarthy, Camilo Gonzalez Arango and Kelvin Choo have been successful in Round 10 of the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator’s Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative (HVSI), securing $432,000 for their Heads Up Safe Route project.  

The project will develop technology capable of detecting overhead and at-height hazards. This includes low-clearance bridges, overhanging branches and low-hanging structures in construction zones. The technology will deliver alerts in real time to drivers and fleet operators. The goal is to prevent costly collisions, protect lives and support safer road operations across the country.

Victoria has a long history of collisions between heavy vehicles and low-clearance overpasses. A notorious example is the Montague Street Bridge in South Melbourne with just a three-metre clearance. The bridge continues to be struck by trucks, vans and buses despite dozens of warning signs and physical height-detection gantries. 

The Heads Up Safe Route project speaks directly to this problem. By equipping heavy vehicles and fleets with real-time hazard detection, the system could help prevent bridge strikes, especially at notorious low-clearance sites like Montague Street Bridge that have resisted traditional fix-it-warnings for decades.