Skip to main content

Australia to develop national smart managed motorways trial

Australia's 2011 federal government budget, announced yesterday, will provide AU$61.4 million over three years for the development of a national smart managed motorways trial to improve congestion, lower urban emissions, and expand the capacity of existing outer city road infrastructure networks.
May 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Australia’s 2011 federal government budget, announced yesterday, will provide AU$61.4 million over three years for the development of a national smart managed motorways trial to improve congestion, lower urban emissions, and expand the capacity of existing outer city road infrastructure networks.

The programme will fund smart infrastructure road projects identified by Infrastructure Australia, a statutory body established under the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008, as demonstrating high benefit-cost ratios and improving traffic demand management and the overall efficiency of the transport flows in major cities. A range of ITS solutions, including ramp metering and signalling, variable message signs, traveller information systems, managed motorways and freight prioritisation, will be used, while Infrastructure Australia has had its funding increased by $36 million over the next four years. This is to enable it to develop long-term strategies to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks, improve freight networks, and promote private funding of domestic infrastructure by investors.

Outlining the government’s infrastructure vision and plans in a budget statement, Anthony Albanese, Australia’s minister for infrastructure and transport, said the managed motorway scheme would secure a higher and more consistent level of motorway performance resulting in travel time savings and improved reliability, improved road safety and lower greenhouse gases emissions.

His full, 42-page budget statement, which contains the principal elements of Australia's national policy (Our Cities, Our Future: A national urban policy for a productive, sustainable and liveable future) released yesterday.

Related Content

  • Submissions invited for Australia’s national tolling forum
    November 10, 2016
    Australia’s 2017 National electronic Tolling Forum (NeTC), Converging Smarter Tolling Technologies, which takes place in Sydney on 23-25 May, will address the challenges and opportunities faced by the tolling industry and their impact on business and personal mobility.
  • Smart Spanish city trials cell-based traffic management
    November 7, 2013
    David Crawford reports on an urban electronic nervous system. The northern Spanish city of Santander – historically a port - is now an emerging technology showcase attracting global attention as a prototype for a medium-sized smart city of the future. In a move to determine the optimal use of available data, it is creating a de-facto experimental laboratory for sensor and mobile phone-based urban traffic management and environmental monitoring innovations.
  • EU releases funds for key TEN-T projects
    November 30, 2012
    The European Commission has launched two Calls for Proposals under the 2012 Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) multi-annual and annual programmes, making over US1.5 billion available to finance European transport infrastructure projects in all transport modes – air, rail, road, and maritime/inland waterways – plus logistics and intelligent transport systems, in all EU Member States. Commission Vice President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport, said: "In making this considerable amount of funding a
  • Oregon tests new mileage-base charging scheme
    August 5, 2013
    Jack Opiola from D’Artagnan Consulting LLP explains Oregon’s latest moves which mandated a trial of mileage-based road use charging. In 1919, Oregon made the 20th century’s most significant contribution to transportation funding policy, becoming the first state in America to implement a gas tax to pay for roads. This summer Oregon’s Legislature passed, and Governor John Kitzhaber signed into law, Senate Bill 810 which requires a distance-based road usage charge for 5,000 volunteer vehicles by 1 July 2015. T