A hundred eyes on the road

Kevin Ryan keeps watch over Auckland's roads from the Auckland Traffic Management Centre on the North Shore. Picture / Paul Estcourt

It is a familiar scene on Auckland roads. You are cruising nicely up the Southern Motorway - not fast but fast enough.

Suddenly the traffic ahead slows dramatically. A mobile sign flashes "Incident left lane, expect delays".

Ten minutes and 200m later you crawl off at the Greenlane off-ramp, thinking: "If that next light stays green a bit longer, I might escape this yet."

Amazingly the light does stays green - for longer than you expect - and your journey is more or less back to normal. But you may have had more outside help than you realise.

Every day 100 cameras watch Auckland's traffic, constantly feeding a stream of images to 25 TV screens in the city's Traffic Management Unit headquarters.

As you slowed on the motorway, a camera had already detected a nose-to-tail crash up ahead. Traffic centre operators made sure the police knew and told radio stations. They also put warnings on electronic roadside signs and websites and sent a message to transport firms.

The camera can zoom in on the incident for signs of injury (a call to ambulance) or people trapped inside (Fire Service). Other cameras scan the traffic either side of the incident.

And, most importantly for the surrounding drivers, operators can adjust most the region's traffic lights by remote control to allow traffic to clear after an accident.

The centre is housed in the old Auckland Harbour Bridge administration building at Northcote, where staff watch key points across much of the Auckland motorway and arterial roading system.

There are 62 closed-circuit television cameras on motorways and 38 others on arterial roads and other locations. Operators watch the wall of monitor screens 24 hours a day.

The key part of the traffic signals control is the Scats system (Sydney Co-ordinated Adaptive Traffic System) involving five powerful Windows-based computers.

The system is already being used in about 80 countries worldwide.

There is also a bus signal priority system on trial in Auckland City and about to be expanded. Transmitters in buses can communicate with the system to get priority at certain intersections.

The present motorway camera coverage includes the Northern and Southern Motorways from Lonely Track Rd in north Albany to Takanini (Great South Rd) in the south. The North-western Motorway is covered from Grafton Gully to Royal Rd, just short of West Harbour.

The centre is the most obvious evidence of the Traffic Management Unit, a joint venture involving Transit NZ and six Auckland-region local bodies between Rodney in the north and Papakura in the south.

A technical section in the unit keeps the system working, manages upgrades and watches technological developments overseas.

None of the cameras make recordings (apart from some brief footage for training). The argument is that traffic management does not require recording and that law enforcement is not the centre's role.

Staff stress that the Traffic Management Unit will not be a cure-all. Auckland traffic is continuing to grow at 2 to 4 per cent a year. Morning and afternoon congestion now often lasts for hours.

The pressure to finish a cohesive motorway network and the need to get far more people onto efficient public transport will not lessen. The control centre is about making the best use of the region's roading - keeping traffic moving and minimising the impact of accidents and other holdups.

The Traffic Management Centre's manager, Simon Gough, a roading engineer, says at present the unit is doing a "damn good job".

But he concedes that what he thought would be a short-term project keeps expanding as the technology improves.

HOW TO GET UP-TO-DATE TRAFFIC INFORMATION

Radio

* Auckland's traffic centre is about to co-operate much more closely with radio stations in peak hours, giving drivers fast, accurate information on holdups and road conditions.

* From next Monday a Radio Network reporter will watch the bank of screens in the Traffic Management Centre Unit at busy times, gaining accurate, immediate traffic information to be shared between all radio stations, who will pass it on to drivers.

* Calls to radio stations by members of the public will also be added to the centre's total knowledge of what is going on in the region.

* All information gathered at the centre can be immediately passed to police, emergency services or contractors maintaining road services.

Electronic road signs

* These signs with variable messages can be used to warn of trouble ahead - obstructions, lanes blocked or closed, or roadworks.

* Fifteen of these signs are on fixed sites and there are 10 mobile units operated by Transit or by maintenance and road project contractors.

Online

* A clear Auckland traffic website is available at www.trafficnz.info. Transport companies, carriers and tradesmen use it to advise their drivers as they thread their way across the isthmus. Taxi companies, larger trucking companies and others also receive emails or faxes about incidents from the website (although this service is not available to the general public).

* Traffic report information on the website is updated every 20 minutes during peak times and hourly off-peak, or more often if a major incident occurs.

* The Traffic Management Centre is also keen that drivers tell their local council call-centres about traffic lights not working or phasing properly. There is a contract system in place to keep them well maintained.