Salahdin Yacoubi, the author of this paper, is the Project Director of TransLink Systems Propriety Limited, the company in charge of the design, the development, the integration and the commissioning of the turnkey Electronic Tolling and Traffic Management (ETTM) system for the Melbourne City Link, Australia. Melbourne City Link (MCL) covers 22 kilometres of roads, tunnels and bridge works and connects the three existing major freeways in Melbourne, which are the Tullamarine Freeway, the Westgate Freeway and the South Eastern Freeway. The project consists of two sections of freeway known as the Southern Link and the Western Link. At an estimated cost of $2 billion, the MCL represents one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Australia. On the MCL, tolls are levied using the most advanced concept to date for Electronic Tolling. This concept being the ability to toll in real free-flowing traffic, that is, customers are not required to slow down or stop and the system operates even if users are changing or straddling road lanes. The supply of this innovative turnkey ETTM system for the MCL has been extremely challenging, and required a combination of technology and customer service processes expertise together with rigorous project management skills. This paper presents the major MCL challenges and the solutions implemented by TransLink Systems to successfully meet the project's objectives. The lessons gained by TransLink Systems will be of great interest to any decision-makers embarking on similar realisations.
Abstract