Drawing on more than 2300 closed-circuit TV cameras covering four motorways, a state-of-the-art control centre in Sydney’s inner west has become the nerve centre for the $17 billion WestConnex toll road network.
A final team moved across to the control centre at St Peters on Friday, ahead of the opening to motorists of the M4-M8 motorway link – part of the last stage of WestConnex – before the state election in March.
They will keep watch on traffic around the clock via 60 mega screens in the facility, making it one of the largest motorway control centres in Australia.
The new control centre at St Peters for the WestConnex road networks.Credit: Brook Mitchell
About 2000 Sydneysiders will get the chance on Sunday to walk through sections of the 7.5-kilometre-long M4-M8 Link tunnels beneath the inner west as part of a community day. The tunnels are up to four lanes in each direction.
WestConnex chief executive Andrew Head said the new facility was a major step-change from decades ago when motorways in Sydney were typically built with their own control rooms a fraction of the size of the new one at St Peters.
“The screens were analog rather than digital, and much more grainy. The support systems around it to manage traffic and incidents weren’t anywhere near as sophisticated as it is today,” he said.
Head said the big difference was that controllers today would be keeping watch from a single point over four motorways, which would effectively grow to five once a massive underground junction for WestConnex at Rozelle was completed late next year.
Premier Dominic Perrottet, left, and Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward visit the WestConnex M4-M8 Link tunnel in April.Credit: Brook Mitchell
“What WestConnex has always planned to do is when it gets to this stage was to bring [the control centres] all together, put them in one place and operate it as a network. That allows us to utilise the best technology available to respond to incidents wherever they may be.”
Automated detection systems send alerts to controllers when vehicles stop on the motorways or behave unusually, and incident response teams are quickly sent to resolve incidents and help avoid flow-on effects for traffic.
“It is mission critical for WestConnex. If [motorists] end up in a situation where they need our help ... this is where that alert gets generated. And if the traffic is not flowing, this is where we pick it up and the flow is returned to a satisfactory level,” Head said.
“Our operations team doesn’t just manage the traffic. They’ve also got to manage everything else that’s going on to enable the tunnel to continue to function.”
WestConnex mechanical and electrical project engineer Emma Clark, who was involved in the fit out of the control centre, said the large screen wall gave controllers situational awareness, while they could delve into finer detail from computers on their desks.
The control centre for WestConnex is on par with the state’s government’s traffic management centre at Alexandria, which keeps watch over Sydney’s wider road network.
WestConnex mechanical and electrical project engineer Emma Clark with chief executive Andrew Head. Credit: Brook Mitchell
The first stage of WestConnex, a widened section of the M4 between Parramatta and Homebush, opened in 2017, followed by the M4 East tunnels on to Haberfield in 2019, and the M8 in 2020. The latter is a duplication of the M5 between Kingsgrove and St Peters.
Control rooms for other motorways operated by toll road operator Transurban such as NorthConnex, the M2 motorway and the Cross City Tunnel will remain.
Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward, who will inspect the M4-M8 Link tunnels on Sunday, said the control centre would streamline the coordination of critical incidents, maintenance and network-wide traffic monitoring for the WestConnex motorways.
Distance-based tolls across the 33-kilometre WestConnex network are capped at $10.47 per journey for cars and motorcycles, and $31.40 for trucks. However, they will rise by 6 per cent on January 1 when annual escalation rates for the motorway network kick in.
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