Future Victoria: Remote-control traffic light system to clear congestion on Melbourne roads

Relief is in sight for Melbourne motorists stuck in bottlenecks, with hi-tech cameras to be rolled out to clear congestion caused by peak hours or accidents. Here’s how they will work.

Victoria’s roads are set to be increasingly cleared of congestion at the push of a button.

Thousands of “eyes in the sky” camera systems and improving bluetooth technology will see our freeways and major intersections work on remote control to improve travel times.

The hi-tech approach – which includes switching traffic lights from red to green – has been used to ferry VIPs around Melbourne and is also used to clear snarls during peak hour.

And as more major project are built, extra cameras will be added to VicRoads’ traffic management network to expand the reach of the remote control system.

It will see traffic light sequences at hundreds of extra intersections able to be altered to help fix bottlenecks.

Director of network performance and improvement at VicRoads, Brian Fletcher, likened it to a “hidden hand” that helped motorists get to where they need to be.

“If you’re along the same route every day you can start to anticipate the lights and you can feel when something is different. That ‘different’ isn’t always an accident,” he said.

 

Mr Fletcher said if an intersection was blocked by traffic and trams can’t get through, for example, lights could be altered to clear the issue.

“Traffic signal engineers will look at that camera … and they will change the lights in real time to what they call ‘flush the junction’, to flush the cars out of the way so the trams don’t get impeded.”

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The flexibility of the system is improving, highlighted by a recent visit to Melbourne by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The high-security couple was supposed to be sent down the Tullamarine Freeway but when a lorry lost its trailer they were diverted and traffic lights altered along the way.

Mr Fletcher said the state’s “big build” would allow many more intersections to get CCTV that gives VicRoads real-time vision of choke points.

“We do get more cameras and we get more sensors, when those big projects happen they will give us more of those assets,” he said.

He said more effort would also be put into managing growing weekend traffic.

“It’s different because it’s not affecting your work time, but your leisure time is really important too,” he said.