Skip to main content

ITS Australia welcomes heavy vehicle smart technology trials

New funding of US$1.7 million recently announced by the Federal and New South Wales Governments for trials of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) technologies has been welcomed by Intelligent Transport Systems Australia. The Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program funds provide for pioneering projects involving heavy vehicle to infrastructure communication technologies to make roads safer.
May 10, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
New funding of US$1.7 million recently announced by the Federal and New South Wales Governments for trials of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) technologies has been welcomed by Intelligent Transport Systems Australia.

The Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program funds provide for pioneering projects involving heavy vehicle to infrastructure communication technologies to make roads safer.

On the busy South Sydney to Port Kembla truck corridor, the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems Initiative (CITI) provides for the fitting of dedicated short range communication transceivers to heavy vehicles that regularly travel this route.

Intelligent Transport Systems Australia (858 ITS Australia) chief executive officer Susan Harris said this is one of the few C-ITS trials around the world focused on heavy vehicles. "This facility will be set up with major players in the logistics industry to establish this corridor as a test bed for trialling a range of C-ITS technologies in real world conditions.  This corridor features steeps gradients and carries a large portion of the trucks travelling to and from the port. These heavy vehicles are mixed in with light vehicle traffic, which creates testing driving conditions ideal for such development work," Susan Harris said.

The CITI project has the potential to speed development and testing of C-ITS technologies such as: provision of real time traffic signal phase and timing (SPAT) information to the driver in the vehicle cabin; provide advanced driver alerts about conditions at intersections, particularly at high risk junctions; test approaches to communication spectrum allocation; explore issues associated with C-ITS applications in remote areas away from fixed line power supply; and systems that streamline commercial activities, such as access to and from the Port.

In addition, the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program will fund a Connected Rest Area Project using C-ITS to enable heavy vehicle drivers to locate rest areas and to explore the integration of this technology within existing systems, including drivers' electronic work diaries.

"These Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Programs will help build the Australian body of knowledge about C-ITS. They will also help grow user acceptance as more people learn about and benefit from these systems. We expect to see these technologies being built into vehicles in the next three to five years,” Harris said.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Michigan transport delegation and ITS Australia meet in Melbourne
    June 26, 2025
    'Mobility and innovation are in our DNA,' says state governor Gretchen Whitmer
  • Automatic signal control to prevent emergency vehicle collisions?
    March 14, 2012
    Field trials under way in Arizona promise eradication of accidents between emergency vehicles at intersections – as part of a national focus on ‘intelligent signal’ infrastructure. Collisions between police cars, ambulances and fire crews as they reach intersections at the same time, with equal priority given by all signals set on red, are as serious as they sound absurd. For emergency teams and those in need of their help, the consequences are dire. The solution could come from application of connected veh
  • ITS Australia announces 2013 awards winners
    November 29, 2013
    From young professionals to lifetime achievers, the ITS Australia awards ceremony recognised leading industry contributors at the end of a busy 2013 event calendar. Winners were announced before more than 110 industry leaders in Melbourne last week and the Awards program was well supported with nominations from a wide cross section of industry sectors. Winners included Keith Aldridge who was posthumously awarded the Max Lay lifetime achievement award for his creative vision, passion and dedication to
  • Toyota proving ground tests co-operative ITS
    February 25, 2013
    Opened in November 2012, Toyota’s intelligent transportation systems (ITS) proving ground is being used to run a number of interactive tests between specially-equipped Toyota vehicles. Located at the company's Higashi-Fuji Technical Centre in Susono City, Japan, the ITS proving ground is a 3.5-hectare site that faithfully replicates a real urban environment, complete with intersecting streets, pedestrian crosswalks, and traffic signals. It is equipped with optical beacons, government-allocated 760 MHz trans