RACV represents over 2 million Victorians and exists to improve the lives of Victorians by addressing their needs in the areas of mobility, home and leisure, and continuing to be their advocate.
RACV offers a diverse range of products and services in the areas of:
RACV's partnership with Leader Community News enables us to identify more local issues in as wide an area as possible.
RACV’s partnership with 7 News enables us to reach a greater proportion of people across Victoria.
A Redspot is a location on the road or public transport network with excessive congestion that potentially makes road users 'see red'. Redspots may be an intersection, a length of road, railway crossing, along a bus or tram route or on a walking or bicycle riding path.
No. A 2018 Redspot is a location of congestion voted on or nominated by the public.
A Black Spot refers to the Federal Government's Black Spot road safety program which addresses locations where crashes occur frequently. Details are available online on the Australian Government website: http://investment.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure_investment/black_spot/
When RACV launched its first Redspot Survey in 1991, the technology did not exist to measure traffic congestion simultaneously over entire cities, so we asked Victorians to tell us where they thought congestion was worst. Fast forward to 2018 and that technology now exists. By using anonymous data from sensors in vehicles and mobile phone apps, we can pinpoint locations of traffic congestion by road segment and by time of day.
For the 2018 Redspot Survey, we have used real traffic data to narrow down Victoria’s ten most congested segments of road. We are asking you to vote on this list to decide Victoria’s worst Redspot for 2018.
If there is congestion in a place, the place is extremely crowded and blocked with vehicles or people. Typical symptoms of congestion on our road networks include long queues and delays, and slow moving traffic.
Vehicles travel much slower when roads are congested. RACV has measured congestion on Victoria’s roads by comparing the speed of traffic during congested or peak times, and the speed of traffic during off-peak times during the night ('free flow speed'). The RACV ‘congestion measure’ is the difference between the peak time speed and the free flow speed. The bigger the difference between these two speeds, the worse the congestion. Allowance is made for some locations having lower speed limits in daytime periods.
Anonymous data from technology in private and commercial vehicles is used. Before the data is supplied by different companies for use, they ‘de-identify’ the data. The change in the position of the vehicle is used to calculate the speed. Depending on the technology in each device, the location is updated as frequently as every second, to a few times per minute. By combining data from many vehicles over a number of months, average speeds can be determined for sections of road.
Data from individual vehicles is collected across Victoria, but the sheer number of vehicles on Melbourne's roads in peak periods means there's a greater reduction in vehicle speeds in peak periods, compared to the 'free flow speed' measured during the night.
RACV collected data over an eight month period from 1 March to 31 October 2017, not including weekends, school holidays or public holidays.
Yes. If you are unfamiliar with the Most Congested list, you can select “I don’t know any of the above locations” then follow the prompts to nominate your own Redspot by dropping a pin on our interactive map.
Yes, you can do both.
RACV will analyse the submitted surveys and identify the locations with the most votes. The results will be reported to the public on this website. RACV will forward the findings of the survey to the Victorian Government and Councils, and urge them to allocate adequate funding to address congestion.
RACV will collate the nominations of congested locations and if a specific location gets enough nominations, we will forward these to the State Government and Councils, and urge them to allocate adequate funding to address the issues.
If you have a specific query about the Redspot Survey, contact us.
