The New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) could reap substantial telecommunications benefits through a collaboration with National ICT Australia Limited (NICTA) on a project involving wireless communications between Sydney's traffic signals.
The utilisation of a prototype wireless mesh network is one of five cooperative research projects being investigated under the banner of NICTA's Smart Transport and Roads (STaR) Project.
With enhanced traffic information and traffic modelling capabilities, traffic control systems will be better able to predict and respond to traffic build-ups and more rapidly detect and respond to problems such as bottlenecks, accidents and vehicle breakdowns.
The long-term agreement may lead to NICTA and the RTA exploiting opportunities to improve the management of road traffic not only in NSW. Over 130 cities worldwide use the RTA-developed Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS).