Safe system learning for tertiary road transport engineering students

Abstract

Context: The Safe System philosophy, adopted in many countries and underpinning Australian and New Zealand road safety strategy, is best-practice in road safety. However, there remains a general absence of the Safe System approach in many road transport engineering undergraduate courses. Despite being acknowledged as best-practice, little of the Safe System is known by graduating engineers, creating a discrepancy between base graduate knowledge and road safety industry practice which is a problem for industry. Purpose: The aim of this project is to determine the best educational design for disseminating Safe System learnings to tertiary engineering students. This paper will explore the best educational design for: a. Disseminating Safe System moral and ethical principles for all tertiary engineering students particularly in fields where human safety is considered paramount. b. Disseminating Safe System theory and practice for tertiary engineering students focussing on road transport engineering. Approach: Responding to the road transportation industry need to recruit engineers versed in the Safe System, curriculum guidelines and materials are being developed to guide Safe System learning at the tertiary level. Graduate attributes and learning outcomes are developed with input from industry representatives. The approaches to learning and teaching are developed with the assistance of senior teaching academics. Key objectives of the approach are modular topics and material for ease of integration into existing courses; interactive teaching material based on industry knowledge and case studies; and a thematic learning approach. Results: The Safe System for Universities (SS4U) curriculum guideline is being developed as a guideline for the learning and teaching of Safe System ethical and moral principles at an introductory level for first year engineering students, and Safe System theory and practice at a more advanced level for students undertaking study in road transportation engineering. It will provide road transport engineering students with the information needed to critically analyse the discussion and application of Safe System thinking and importantly, to be able to question when it is absent. Furthermore, the broad moral and ethical principles of engineering safety are emphasized to enable engineering students a moral and ethical perspective to the technical and procedural decisions that they will make in their future careers. Conclusions: Through this project, a means for smarter educational design for disseminating Safe System knowledge to student engineers is being developed. The outcome of this dissemination will be graduate engineers able to apply their knowledge of the Safe System to their chosen field of practice to benefit the wider community, and specifically, helping to fulfil a road transport industry need.