Winners of ITS Australia awards announced

Nominations reflecting world's best practice in the intelligent transport systems (ITS) industry were winners at the third 858 ITS Australia awards presentation ceremony in Melbourne.

ITS Australia President and Chair of the Awards Judging Panel Brian Negus said that the entries in Australia's awards program would perform well in any competition around the world. "After attending the 6456 ITS World Congress last month and seeing and hearing countless best practice case studies, we are confident that winners of our local awards program would rate highly anywhere," he said.

"The standard of entries in our competition made it tough for the judging panel. In addition to our major National ITS Award and the Max Lay Life Time Achievement Award, we also present a Young Professional Award to encourage innovation and leadership in our industry among young practitioners," said Brian Negus.

The 2012 ITS Australia Award winners were:

• National ITS Award Winner: 4728 VicRoads - for the Road Closures and Traffic Alerts website.
• Young Professional Award: Alexander Chapman - for his passion for the ITS industry through his studies and early professional life with Arup Consulting Group and GHD. This Award includes an expenses paid trip to attend the 2013 ITS World Congress in Tokyo.
• Dr Max Lay Life Time Achievement Award: John Lees - for more than 40 years of pushing the boundaries of Intelligent Transport Systems.

"On behalf of the ITS Australia Awards team and the Board of Directors, we heartily congratulate the winners," said Brian Negus. "We thank all entrants for their nominations. In particular, we are happy to announce encouragement awards to the finalists in the Young Professional Award category - Simon Paterson and Felicity Yan of 6722 Roads and Maritime Services NSW, and Thomas Wong of Sinclair Knight Merz.  A special vote of thanks goes to the Judging Panel - Dr Max Lay, 6373 Ancap Chair Lauchlan McIntosh, 1686 Toyota's Neil Daniel, University of South Australia's Rocco Zito and University of New South Wales' Mike Regan.

"Australia really is an innovative ITS industry world leader. We have many examples of first to market innovations, our industry exports its technology confidently and our people contribute to key international standards and deployment committees.

"Another measure of our industry punching above its weight is the large number of international ITS Memorandums of Understanding we have signed with other countries - we now have nine international partners.

"With ITS Australia celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2012, and winning the right to host the 2016 ITS World Congress in Melbourne, our ITS excellence awards cap off a big year.

"This Awards program was initiated in 2010 to encourage and further strengthen our industry. We look forward to reviewing more creative nominations from more entrants in the future," he said.

NOTE: The Lifetime Achievement Award is named after Dr Max Lay, a founder of the original Australian ITS Society, who helped to establish ITS Australia and has been recognised internationally for his significant contributions to ITS technologies.