NRMA's 10-step plan to tackle congestion

Today the NRMA released a traffic Decongestion Strategy designed to provide solutions to the clogged motorways and increased travel times that plague Sydney motorists. The ten steps are neither costly nor difficult to implement.

The strategy calls for the appointment of an anti-congestion Director, the development of a specific motorway (traffic) management team and more employees to manage Sydney's traffic signal network.

NRMA Motoring & Services President Wendy Machin said the NSW Government needed a new strategy to manage Sydney’s traffic to make it easier for commuters to get in and around the city.

"There seems to be no overall strategy to make sure the roads are managed properly. All too often motorists find themselves stuck in traffic that could have been avoided there was a new focus on managing congestion," Ms Machin said.

'While there is no doubt Sydney needs to build its missing motorways, we can also make life easier for motorists by adopting simple measures that don't cost billions of dollars.

"Our study shows that Sydney's motorways could be better utilised simply by changing the way they are managed, which is why we have asked the NSW Government to consider the proposals put forward by the NRMA."

"We need, within the RTA, an anti-congestion Director, with the vision and accountability for managing congestion on Sydney's major road network. We need someone who is solely focused on keeping Sydney moving."

The NRMA is also calling on the RTA to create a motorway management team that would actively manage the motorways to identify issues, implement an effective response and to advise motorists to avoid certain roads due to heavy traffic.

"We need to give motorists more advance warning to avoid areas where traffic is heavy and do more to provide real time traffic information and variable speed limits in order to keep our city moving," Ms Machin said.

The report also calls on the Government to adopt a maximum target time of three hours to clear major traffic incidents and 25 minutes to clear minor incidents in Sydney to minimise the time that motorists are stuck in traffic.

The NRMA would also like to see the RTA decentralise the traffic light network for regional centres from Sydney to local areas.

"With only 15 people responsible for operation over 4,000 traffic signals across the State we can’t expect the operators to manage them all efficiently," Ms Machin said.

10 ways to relieve Sydney traffic:

1. The appointment of an anti-congestion Director to keep Sydney moving
2. Development of a motorway management team designed to pro-actively manage delays and/or incidents on a daily basis
3. Appointment of more traffic signal staff to proactively respond to delays or incidents on the road network
4. Review parking restrictions on major roads – the last major review was undertaken in the lead up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000
5. Faster clearance of traffic incidents – creating time limits to clear incidents
6. Provision of reliable and up to date information through the use of a dedicated traffic and transport radio network, proactively using variable messaging systems, providing live traffic leads via mobile and or email notifications daily
7. Promote flexible working hours to reduce demand during peak hours
8. Improve the forgotten transit lanes and highlight them using orange
9. Remove traffic signs that give motorists the wrong information
10. Adopt challenging performance measures to avoid motorists having to endure lengthy delays such as those experienced on the F3 freeway

Read or downloadthe completeDecongestion Strategy report (PDF 3MB/40 pages).

To see the NRMA blog post click here.