Skip to main content

ITS Australia supports Melbourne’s world first ‘urban laboratory’

ITS Australia has welcomed the Victorian Government’s announcement of a unique hi-tech transport project for Melbourne. The National Connected Multimodal Transport (NCMT) test bed will develop pilots and facilitate collaborations between government, industry and academia. It will utilise thousands of sensors and wireless units fitted to roads to provide insight into how to manage transport systems and road networks in a more efficient way. The urban laboratory would cover approximately 7 kilometres
January 6, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
858 ITS Australia has welcomed the Victorian Government’s announcement of a unique hi-tech transport project for Melbourne.

The National Connected Multimodal Transport (NCMT) test bed will develop pilots and facilitate collaborations between government, industry and academia. It will utilise thousands of sensors and wireless units fitted to roads to provide insight into how to manage transport systems and road networks in a more efficient way.

The urban laboratory would cover approximately 7 kilometres of roadways in Melbourne.

ITS Australia confirmed its participation in the project by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with test bed leaders, the University of Melbourne, late last year.

The first pilot NCMT test bed is scheduled to be launched in April 2017.

ITS Australia CEO Susan Harris said the test bed and a recent iMOVE CRC submission to the Federal Government show just how seriously Australia takes real-time, data-driven research to find the best possible outcomes.

Professor Iven Mareels, Dean of the Melbourne School of Engineering said a connected community was the key to improved transport options, while founding director of the NCMT test bed and University of Melbourne Professor in Transport for Smart Cities, Majid Sarvi, said the urban laboratory will be a living experiment of connected vehicles and transport networks, people movements and city infrastructure.

Related Content

  • July 17, 2012
    US economic stimulus package highlights ITS technology
    US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood talks to ITS International about economic stimulus funding and the absolute need to maintain and increase the use of technology in transportation. Of the total of $787 billion of funding announced under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the economic stimulus package which was signed into law by US President Barack Obama on 17 February 2009, $48.1 billion will go to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). Of that, $27.5 billion is for highway in
  • September 12, 2014
    ST Electronics and IBM Singapore collaborate for smarter mobility
    ST Electronics (Info-Comm Systems) and IBM Singapore have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate and explore opportunities to leverage transport data analytics to promote smarter mobility. The MOU will enable both companies to develop a mutually beneficial partnership into new strategic growth areas in transport data analytics for exchange technical dialogue around their products and capabilities, specifically on the use of smart analytics for urban mobility solutions. They will explo
  • September 2, 2024
    UK TransiT Hub to lead digital twinning for decarbonisation
    University-led project looks at how digital twins can build more efficient infrastructure
  • August 20, 2015
    Promoting cycling is the solution to congestion and pollution
    Cycling offers health, air quality and road space/parking benefits, promoting governments and the EU to look at tax and technology initiatives. David Crawford reports. One way to improve urban air quality is to make green alternatives to car use financially attractive. Incentivising employees to switch their travel-to-work mode to using their own bikes could increase cycling’s modal share of commuting travel by 50%, a recent French research project suggests. The country’s government already subsidises pu