Aurukun Road, Cape York

RPS' surveying specialists have supported road upgrades in the Cape Indigenous Mayors Alliance (CIMA) works program to improve accessibility for the Far North Queensland Aurukun community.

Challenge

Aurukun Road is the only way in and out of Aurukun, a remote coastal town in Far North Queensland's Cape York. This partly sealed 106.38km road meets the Peninsula Development Road, and then further connects to Cairns. During the April to November wet season severe rainfall and flooding damages Aurukun Road making travel to the connecting Peninsula Developmental Road difficult for the small Indigenous community.

In 2016 federal and state government funding of $50.5million was allocated to the Cape Indigenous Mayors Alliance (CIMA) works program for projects across eight Cape York communities. Included in this program of works is the sealing and road geometry upgrades of roughly 38km of high priority sections on Aurukun Road.

Solution

Drawing on our broad experience shaping transport infrastructure projects, our surveying specialists were engaged by Aurukun Shire Council to provide reliable design and construction surveying services over the course of the three-year road upgrade project.

High performance global navigation satellite system (GNSS) were used to coordinate detailed surveys in stage one to identify areas on Aukurun Road most heavily affected by the wet season. Once located, these priority sections were monitored by placement of high accuracy total survey stations (TSS).

With the priority sections marked for upgrades, road construction began. This stage was supported by traverse survey control delivered by our innovative TSS technology that provided important information on road chainages, levels, and alignments.

The sealing and road geometry of Aurukun Road was completed in December 2019. With an additional 38km of the road now sealed access for Aurukun community is no longer limited in the wet season.