Research Projects - George Rechnitzer & Associates

UNSW Quad Bike Performance Project

Since 2001, more than 210 Australians have died in quad-bike incidents. As a strategy to reduce injuries and fatalities from quad-bike use on farms, the Quad Bike Performance Project conducted by researchers from Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research aimed to develop a consumer safety rating system for quad bikes. This strategy is part of a Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) attempt to reduce the high toll of fatal and serious injuries associated with the use of quad bikes in the farming environment.

UNSW TARS lead researcher for The Quad Bike Performance Project (QBPP) is Professor Raphael Grzebieta. The UNSW TARS Project Manager for the QBPP is Associate Professor (Adj.) George Rechnitzer. Sub-project leading consultants for the dynamic handling tests and for the analysis of fatality data were Mr. Keith Simmons and Prof. (Adj.) Andrew McIntosh, respectively.

For full details please see UNSW Quad Bike Performance Project Page.

Get an appointment with our Expert

If you have a project you wish to discuss
in confidence please call Dr Rechnitzer
on 0418 884 174.

Heavy vehicle fleet safety Reviews

Through his consultancy GRA with expert colleagues, Dr Rechnitzer has undertaken major review projects of fleet safety and management systems, ranging from light to heavy vehicles for PBM Mining (Laos, 2013 & 2017-18), BHP Billiton (Chile, 2015), Cargill (Indonesia, 2015-16), and Hancock Natural Resource Group (logging in Australia and NZ, 2017-18).

GRA was commissioned by these major international companies because firstly because of our team’s specialist and comprehensive expertise and secondly the very thorough methodology used to carry out these major safety reviews, with deliverables providing significant practical recommendations for severe incident risk reduction and safety improvements. All are study findings and reports are confidential to the respective companies.

The well tested and developed GRA method for these studies are based on ‘The Safe System Approach”, used in Australia, and is internationally recognised by the World Health Organisation and OECD nations as the best practice approach to road safety improvement based on Vision Zero concepts (zero fatality outcomes). This approach is multifaceted and addresses (at all levels) vehicle safety, road safety and driver, passenger and other road user knowledge, skills and behaviours such that the outcome is safer drivers and passengers, travelling in safer vehicles and driving on safer roadways at safe speeds.

For these projects the GRA team travels to the various representative sites for an in depth “boots on the ground” appraisal of all the relevant vehicles types, routes and road conditions, unfiltered interviews of relevant personnel from management, staff, drivers and operators, detailed incident analysis, risk identification and practical countermeasure development, with detailed report presented.

Key project phases include:

– Collection of Safety Relevant Data for Consideration and Analysis

– Vehicle Management (Safer Vehicles) and “Human-Vehicle” interfaces

– Driver/Rider Management (Safer People) and – “Human-Vehicle” interfaces

– Journey Management (Safer Roads)

– Safety and fleet management systems and document review

Logging Fleets safety review: Australia & NZ

The GRA Project team compromised Dr Lori Mooren, Dr George Rechnitzer, Dr Raphael Grzebieta and Mr. Keith Simmons, who combined have extensive experience in road safety, transport and workplace safety, fleet management and vehicle rollover safety.

Palm Oil Plantation vehicle fleets safety Review – Indonesia

The Project Team comprised Dr George Rechnitzer, Dr Raphael Grzebieta and Keith Simmons, who each have extensive experience in road safety, transport and workplace safety, fleet management and vehicle rollover and ROPS systems.

Many other projects have been also been completed but due to commercial and legal confidentiality cannot be described in detail here.

Discuss your Project Proposal

If you have a project you wish to discuss in confidence please call Dr Rechnitzer on 0418 884 174.

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