CASE STUDY - Department of Transport and Main Roads in Toowoomba

Keeping costs down while offering motorists the latest intelligent transport solution was a key objective of the joint project.

Helping to make the roads safe for motorists was a powerful incentive in the introduction of a Wireless Networking Solution and the Motorola One Point Wireless Suite by the Department of Transport and Main Roads and Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC) in Toowoomba.

What’s more, because traffic management systems rely on the network, it has to be up and running as close as possible to 100 per cent of the time, and there has been no outage since commissioning.

With Toowoomba, the gateway to central and outback Queensland, it is vital to keep all road users moving. Not only that, with a population over 100,000 and around 100 traffic intersections using 30 traffic monitoring cameras, the town has plenty of traffic management challenges.

Mr David Playford, traffic systems coordinator, Department of Transport and Main Roads in Toowoomba, is extremely pleased with the Motorola solution comprising Mesh, point to point and point to multi point technology, which connects to the STREAMS Traffic Management System in the Toowoomba area.

“It’s the biggest wireless infrastructure of its kind in South East Asia. It’s been brilliant in that we have saved a lot of money. In addition, it gives us enormous flexibility and we can self manage the whole network from a single point manager system, also provided by Motorola. We’re not reliant on others.”

The Department of Transport and Main Roads and Toowoomba Regional Council in Toowoomba own their own infrastructure, consequently, because there are no leased lines the cost savings are substantial.

“We’ve estimated cost savings at around $1600 per annum per intersection and $4000 per annum for camera sites. The math is simple, and especially meaningful, if you multiply that by 10 to 20 years,” said David.

It remains the case that traffic management is an essential service in the twenty first century. With car numbers increasing every year it becomes a challenge to keep the traffic flowing smoothly and also to offer the latest opportunities for quick response to organisations like emergency services.

One of the other aspects that has been really pleasing is the fact that it’s a fully mobile network. The seamless mobility means that no matter where relevant personnel are in the network, they can connect to the traffic management systems.

David said that he can sit at home, in the car or office and look for issues.

“For example, if we need to get the traffic lights to flash for emergency services co-ordination and provide free flowing traffic, it’s instant management. All without the cost of maintaining a continuous high bandwidth connection by alternate means.”

One of the other advantages is, as Toowoomba grows to maybe double the size, their communications backbone infrastructure can cope.

“We don’t have to upgrade to another system. We can keep adding devices for quite a long time. It’s a turnkey system which we don’t have to touch other than just buying an upgrade license.

“The response vehicles of the department can be monitored and tracked so that management can identify where any vehicle is at any time and because we have enabled communications and video, it’s possible to see the incident. We can react immediately, be connected and monitor the situation,” said David.

Variable Message Signs which operate to warn motorists of interruptions to traffic flow can be instantly programmed and monitored to ensure up to date information is being provided to all road users.

In the past it was a disparate system. Now it’s combined into one solution capable of managing any part of the portfolio.

“We liked the idea of dealing with Motorola as a proven supplier and we’ve found that their gear is extremely robust in noisy environments.”

David recalls old aircraft with Motorola radio equipment in them.

“Motorola have been in this business for a long time, and that’s comforting.

“We did initial trials over three years in Bundaberg, Cairns and Mt Isa but on a smaller scale, then in November 2009 it went 100 percent live. Bundaberg was used as ‘Proof of Concept’ site for Emergency Vehicle Progression. This system conditions traffic signals to turn green for approaching emergency vehicles, and it works. It’s all been presenting as a very stable and dependable wireless communications platform,” he said.

David was fulsome in his praise of the high value level of support provided by Motorola and the good relationship that has been strengthened due to hard work by the Motorola team.