NSW Police have been conducting experiments to test the resilience of urban environments, including driving cars at 80 kilometres an hour into bollards, as concerns about vehicle-borne attacks have re-emerged following the Flinders St incident.
On Thursday a driver, named as Saeed Noori, allegedly ploughed a car into pedestrians on the street packed with Christmas shoppers, injuring 19 people.
Douglas Tomkin, part of the research team which has been working with NSW Police to improve city design, says tests have been conducted on finding ways to keep people safe through urban design.
A damaged vehicle is seen at the scene of an incident on Flinders Street, in Melbourne, Thursday, December 21, 2017. Source: AAP Image/Joe Castro
The Designing Out Crime Research Centre team from the University of Technology, Sydney, helped draft the government document ‘Safe Places – Vehicle Management’.
“They're testing these large bollards, they're driving vehicles into them at high speeds to see what happens... there will be tests on many different types of bollards in the very near future,” Mr Tomkin told SBS News.
In the wake of the Flinders Street incident, Mr Tomkin said bollards and other barriers like chicanes are good ways of averting vehicle-borne attacks.
“The police have to react when something like this happens. I mean, we all want to be protected. So the quick solutions are these temporary bollards.”
In the past year, Australia’s major cities have been fortifying public spaces with more bollards.
In parts of Melbourne, concrete structures and bollards have been rolled out, including on Flinders Street - following January's Bourke Street attack where six people were killed.
New concrete mounds for security at Sydney's Martin Place Source: Rashida Yosufzai
In Sydney’s Martin Place, new concrete mounds have been installed and temporary structures have gone up.
The City of Sydney Council said installation of new temporary security measures would start this week.
"The City is currently progressing plans for a major redevelopment of Martin Place which will include a holistic approach to security."
Bollard manufacturer Nicholas Marasco of Australian Bollards said his company has been extremely busy over the past year as requests from governments roll in.
“With the common problem we're facing across the globe we've been extremely busy working with governments and councils,” the general manager said.
