Motorists will have to stop at red lights on freeways in Melbourne

MOTORISTS will have to put the brakes on as they merge between major roads in Melbourne with red lights to be rolled out. VicRoads says they’ll help you go faster. Have your say.

MOTORISTS will be forced to stop at red lights on freeways as they merge onto other major arterials across Melbourne in a bid to improve traffic movement.

VicRoads chief executive John Merritt said nine sites from the Calder Fwy, M80 Ring Rd to EastLink, would have on-ramp metering from the first week of December to better manage the freeways.

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“It is about making sure if we hold you up on that oncoming ramp, the time that you lose there will be more than made up by travelling faster when you get onto the freeway,” Mr Merritt told 3AW.

“We measured this within an inch of its life to know that this is true.”

VicRoads CEO John Merritt says it will aid traffic flow.

Mr Merritt said there were sensors embedded under the asphalt about every 500m in each lane which measure volume, density and flow on the freeway.

“What they are telling us is how much available space we’ve got that lane and they connect to an algorithm that controls that green-light on that ramp. It detects available space every two minutes, recalculates and it goes green at certain intervals,” he said.

“It is a very complicated algorithm that is sucking up all that data from those sensors identifying spare road space and releasing cars into it.

“When we use this metering and combine it with the sensors to release cars in a managed way onto the freeway it drops the nose-to-nail crashes by 30 per cent and that is the real prize we are after.”

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Mr Merritt said the “sweet spot” on freeways was about 27-28 cars in each lane per minute.

He said red lights had been used on on-ramps for about 15 years.

“We know from the daily measurement of that we get about an extra 20 per cent of vehicles on the freeway, about a 20 per cent extra flow from that,” he said.

The nine sites to have the managed motorway system are:

-CityLink, onto the Westgate Freeway

-Westgate Freeway City bound to CityLink airport bound

-M80 Ring Rd Greensborough bound to Calder Fwy city bound

-M80 Ring Rd Greensborough bound to Tullamarine Fwy airport bound

-M80 Ring Rd Altona bound to Tullamarine Fwy airport bound

-M80 Ring Rd Altona bound to Tullamarine Fwy city bound

-Calder Fwy city bound to M80 Ring Rd Greensborough bound

-Calder Fwy M80 Ring Rd Altona bound

-Monash Freeway to EastLink

The red lights will only operate when the traffic volumes dictate a need.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Doug Fryer said the light system was highly sophisticated and would result in more efficient traffic flow.

“We absolutely support this initiative,’’ he said.

“What this is about is making sure our roads flow more freely.

“It’s around easing the congestion not causing it.”