TfNSW is responsible for allocating physical and temporal road user space safely and equitably. The TfNSW Road User Space Allocation (RUSA) Policy aims to reduce private motor vehicle trips within built-up areas to support efficient movement and enhance the amenity of places. Anyone in TfNSW involved in the planning, design, scheme approval, building, management or operation of roads in NSW needs to adhere to this policy. These principles should be adhered to ahead of any guidance that seeks to protect or maintain the level of service for private vehicles.

The policy ensures that road user space allocation:

• considers place and movement functions
• achieves the strategic intent and outcomes as set out in strategies and plans
• achieves the movement and place vision of a corridor or network
• considers the limited amount of space available
• considers the safety of the most vulnerable users
• can be adjusted to respond to specific circumstances, including temporal reallocation. 

It is a powerful policy in re-imagining the functions of existing corridors in a brownfield precinct.

Figure 4 Order of considerations for allocating space for road users

When allocating road user space, avoid:

• adverse impacts on road safety for all road users
• barriers to access a place or service due to people’s physical ability or age, which may result in non-compliance with the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA)
• loss of allocation for walking or cycling
• loss of trees or amenity
• an overall increase in lanes for private motor vehicles
• delays to public transport due to general traffic.

While some precincts may be car-dependent today, the policy aims to maximise the potential for walking, cycling and public transport to facilitate mode shift in the long term to more efficient travel modes.

This TfNSW RUSA Policy is supported by the TfNSW RUSA Procedure, which involves three main phases of planning and design:

• network planning
• precinct and corridor planning
• street and road design. 

For consistency throughout projects, later planning phases need to be informed by decisions and outputs of previous phases, so considerations and decisions are made on a progressively finer scale. For each phase, the procedure describes what needs to be achieved, the tasks to be undertaken, as well as the governance and decision making required to support progress to the next phase. The relationship between the three phases is summarised in Figure 5.

Figure 5 Relationship between various planning and design phases within TfNSW