Sydney joins drone revolution to monitor clogged road network
Motorists will soon to be monitored by more than 70 drones with the NSW government to deploy a fleet of unmanned aircraft over Sydney’s clogged road network.
NSW
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Motorists will soon to be monitored by more than 70 drones with the NSW government to deploy a fleet of unmanned aircraft over Sydney’s clogged road network.
The “eyes in the sky” will not only feed real-time images of road crashes and choke points back to the Transport Management Centre (TMC), but will also be used to inspect difficult to access transport infrastructure.
Trialled over the school holidays – including at the problematic Rozelle Interchange – the drones spent almost 100 hours in the air while taking part in 160 traffic monitoring and incident response missions. Led by a chief pilot, Transport for NSW will now be deploying the drones during morning and afternoon peaks – and during holiday traffic periods – when the network is under pressure and incidents can have negative knock-on effects.
Sydney is among several global cities to take part in a drone revolution, with other cities not only using unmanned aerial vehicles for traffic management, but to deploy first aid such an automated defibrillator to an accident site.
Roads Minister John Graham said the drones will help reduce the severity of traffic jams around incidents enabling authorities to respond faster such as sorting out a detour while also pushing out information on live traffic apps.
The drones would complement more than 1700 existing CCTV cameras already in place across the Sydney road network, he said.
“With an eye in the sky, detours can be put in place faster and information provided on apps like Live Traffic,” he said. “No one wants to be stuck at the back of a queue of traffic and drones will help reduce the severity of traffic jams around road incidents.”
During the trial, the drones were used to understand the holiday traffic in bottleneck areas like Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, and will be used when race fans head to Bathurst for the start of the Supercars season opener this month, Mr Graham said.
The State government has calculated the use of drones will save NSW motorists more than $71 million in travel time, $24 million in secondary incidents and $23 million in vehicle operating costs.
Premier Chris Minns said the drones will focus on the key arterial roads in and out of Sydney such as the M1 heading north, the Hume Highway to the south and the Great Western Highway at Blackheath.
Transport for NSW Executive Director Customer Journey Management Craig Moran said a new “drone hub” had been set up in Leichhardt.
“Drones are incredibly effective at closing gaps in what we can see across the network,” he said. “Not every location is suitable for CCTV installation, whereas one drone can be deployed from almost anywhere across the network to survey a wide range of areas.”
The deployment comes as Rozelle Interchange continues to pose a nightmare, with the recent “tweaks” pushing the gridlock further up Victoria Road.
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