Queensland is Australia's second largest state consisting of 1,727,000 sq kms, and populated by 3.3 million people. The State Government road agency, the Department of Main Roads, manages a state controlled road network of 34,000 km, of which 4,200 km is federally funded, and has a replacement value of approximately $AUS 22 Billion. The state road network is only 20% of Queensland's entire road network but carries 80% of traffic. The remaining road network is owned and managed by local governments. With the increased focus on actively operating the road network, and the increasing pressure on the North Coast road system it was decided to investigate how intelligent transportation systems (ITS), in the form of an Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), could be used as a comparatively low cost option of providing long term safety and efficiency improvements. A brief was developed for the planning, design and economic assessment for an ATMS. Consulting Engineers PPK Environment and Infrastructure (in association with the Department of Main Road's Traffic Systems Development) were commissioned to carry out the study. The study area consisted of 150km of gazetted motorway. The consultant's brief was structured to answer three main questions that needed to be addressed before Main Roads could proceed with the vision of an ATMS for the sub-region: 1. Can an ATMS provide significant benefits to road users outside a metropolitan area? 2. Is an ATMS independently capable of providing a quantifiable return on investment? 3. Does an ATMS help address the strategic objectives of the Department? This paper outlines the methodology and findings of the study, which demonstrated that the answer to all of these questions is affirmative.
Abstract