Installation of the Streams integrated traffic management system
Melbourne, Australia
Integrating traffic systems improves management and control
Summary Information
In 2007, VicRoads commissioned Streams Motorway Management for the M1 Monash Freeway upgrade in Melbourne, Australia. The objective of the trial was to maintain high vehicle throughput rates and thereby reduce travel times
for peak hour commuters across 75km of urban motorway. The article presented in ITS International summarizes the project and identifies significant benefits realized.
In an effort to improve travel time and reliability, VicRoads introduced Transmax's Streams Motorway Management system to the M1 Monash Freeway (Melbourne, Australia) in 2007. Streams provides integrated traffic management services and supports all typical transportation management center operations. Streams utilizes rule-based incident response mechanisms, a set of 20 traffic engineering rules, and GIS information to rapidly formulate incident responses, often in 10 seconds or less. By comparison, traditional incident response generation can last up to 15 minutes. TMC operators enter the location and type of incident and Streams begins the response generation process.
Results
The trial deployment on the M1 Monash Freeway resulted in the following benefits:
- Greater than 25 percent increase in peak period throughput capacity.
- 30 percent reduction in traffic incidents.
- 42 percent reduction in peak period travel times.
- 11 percent reduction in emissions.
- Overall estimated economic benefit of $1 million per day.