NICTA TEAMS UP WITH NSW RTA ON INTELLIGENT
Announcement posted by Data61 31 May 2007
A collaboration between NICTA and the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) could realise substantial telecommunication benefits for the agency through the use of wireless communications between
The utilisation of a prototype wireless mesh network is one of five co-operative research projects being investigated under the banner of NICTA’s Smart Transport and Roads (STaR) Project.
Around $7.5 million is being invested by NICTA, Australia’s Centre of Excellence for information and communications technology, as part of a joint research and development agreement with the RTA looking at innovative traffic control communications, traffic sensing, traffic modelling and traffic control room user interfaces.
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).
With the support of the RTA, NICTA has installed on-street research infrastructure in the shape of a prototype wireless mesh communications network at 7
The NICTA test-beds will support a variety of NICTA research and development activities and is anticipated to provide the basis for a robust and low-cost integrated communications platform supporting a wide variety of traffic systems’ communication requirements. This may include low-bandwidth communication with traffic light controllers and variable message signs and high-bandwidth communication with roadside video sensors and vehicles.
Reliability and timely delivery of critical data will be achieved through innovative routing algorithms which exploit redundant wireless links. For example the mesh will have a built-in mechanism to protect the network should the integrity of individual nodes be compromised.
In conjunction with the wireless mesh test-bed, NICTA is also researching new traffic sensing technologies. Traffic monitoring cameras at a signalised intersection adjacent to NICTA’s Kensington laboratory have been connected to a video processing system that can measure queue lengths and monitor traffic congestion. These new sensing technologies will allow NICTA researchers to incorporate additional real-time wide-area traffic information into traffic control decisions.
Other aspects of the research collaboration could see road traffic control room operators interacting with computer systems using a combination of natural speech and hand gestures.
NICTA research has already seen improvements in the user interfaces for traffic incident recording and for accessing the contacts database used by Traffic Management Centre operators in managing those incidents.
“A smart road system consists of four broad components, sensors, output devices, information processing and a communications network,” NICTA Australian Technology Park Laboratory Director Professor Aruna Seneviratne said. “NICTA has research strengths which can make a significant contribution in all these areas.”
“This use inspiration, as show-cased through the STaR project will realise results a lot quicker than working with simulated data and situations,” Professor Seneviratne said.
The STaR project is one of NICTA’s Strategic Focus projects. It is one of a handful of large-scale projects which focus NICTA's research toward advances in technology which will produce significant social, environment and economic impact for .
NICTA sees this collaboration with the RTA as an integral part of the establishment of a substantial portfolio of research and development in intelligence transport systems.
About NICTA
NICTA is a national research institute with a charter to build
National ICT Australia is funded by the Australian Government as represented by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and the Australian Research Council through Backing Australia’s Ability and the ICT Centre of Excellence program
NICTA was established and is supported by its members: The Australian Capital Territory Government; The Australian National University; NSW Department of State and Regional Development; and The University of New South Wales. NICTA is also supported by its partners: The University of Sydney; University of Melbourne; the Victorian Government; the Queensland Government; Griffith University; Queensland University of Technology; and The University of Queensland.
About RTA
The RTA is a NSW Statutory Authority responsible for promoting road safety; traffic management; driver licensing and vehicle registration. The RTA manages more than 17,919km of State Roads, including 4,250 km of the AusLink network, and almost 3,000km of Regional Roads and Local Roads in far western NSW; more than 3,400 traffic signals and more than 4,928 bridges and major culverts.
The RTA employs close to 7,000 equivalent full time people in more than 180 offices, including 130 motor registries across the state and completed around 19 million registration, licensing and other transactions last year.