Traffic Engineering - March 2020
Delivering safer roads for local communities
The NSW State government has said they are giving a big push to traffic management.
Safety barriers, rumble strips and wide centrelines will be rolled out across NSW’s road network as part of a $822 million investment into road safety infrastructure upgrades through the Safer Roads Program.
Round three of the Safer Roads Program will deliver:
- More than 230 kilometres of safety barriers, which absorb impact forces and protect vehicle occupants, reducing the severity of head-on and run-off-road crashes by up to 95 per cent.
- 2,150 kilometres of rumble strips to alert motorists they are departing from their lane, reducing the likelihood of this crash type by up to 25 per cent.
- Almost 1,000 kilometres of wide centreline providing a greater distance for drivers to recover from lane departure, reducing the likelihood of head-on crashes by up to 50 per cent and run-off-road crashes by up to 25 per cent.
- Almost 1,500 high-risk rural curve improvements including shoulder sealing, safety barriers, rumble strips, signage upgrades and line-marking upgrades.
- More than 100 urban intersection improvement projects including roundabouts and traffic signal upgrades.
Is banning petrol cars the answer
Alan Finlay found an interesting piece that gives three academics from Sydney University opinions under the heading “Should Australia ban petrol cars?”.
Alan noted the key issues raised
1. Charging infrastructure, especially in apartment buildings and inner-city suburbs where cars are routinely parked on street
2. Source of power for the charging process (should be renewable, not fossil fuel)
3. Capacity of the electricity grid
Alan also notes that there were a few issues not covered:
4. Who pays for the electricity?
5. How do EVs pay for their share of road use costs?
Highways England expands deployment of SaaS traffic management system
Following the successful completion of an initial programme in the south east of England, Siemens Mobility Limited has been awarded a new contract by Highways England (HE) to both upgrade and expand its collaborative traffic management (CTM) solution to other regions.
The new programme is designed to deliver benefits to road users by focusing on the joint design and operation of traffic signals at key junctions; enabling local highway authorities and other key stakeholders to work together much more collaboratively. By digitally upgrading traffic signals to operate on cloud-based technology and so increase the visibility of their operation, local and strategic road networks can work seamlessly together. To support this, Siemens Mobility will be introducing a completely new user interface, UTC-UX, with access to a new suite of tools to manage traffic signals on the trunk road network in the south east. Linking the new interface into the company’s urban traffic control (UTC) system, this delivers an easy to use, intuitive system that operates directly from a web browser.
Traffic lights work a little differently on the Gold Coast. How do they compare?
ABC news reports that if traffic lights are causing you a frustrating, stop-start daily commute, you're not alone.
Gold Coast Uber driver Grant Nolan has become all too familiar with the hot — and not — spots for traffic lights in the south-east Queensland city.
According to Mr Nolan, it's an art.