Take the high way or the low way on the super intelligent highway

A Intelligent transport systems (ITS) can make a huge contribution to sustainability.

On congested Parisian roads, drivers are able to plan the quickest route using a Visonaute portable terminal which conveys real time information on traffic conditions.

Developed by France Telecom, Renault and Sagem, the Visionaute tells the driver how long a trip will take on a preferred route and shows the fastest alternative route. The system also gives information on unexpected congestion caused, for example, by accidents or road works.

At any moment during driving, motorists can check in their car their position and the traffic status on the route they are taking, either on a map or from a text description.

The Visionaute project started in 1985 with the cooperation of public authorities and local organisations. Parisian roads are instrumented: sensors in the pavement collect data about lane occupation, speed and traffic density, as well as information from security services about traffic holdups, such as accidents, demonstrations, and road blocks.

The potential of such intelligent transport systems to reduce congestion and make driving easier is easy to assess, but their environmental benefits are just as important. Smooth traffic flow can reduce fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 per cent. Greenhouse gas amelioration measures for road traffic are very important for Australian cities because household trips are growing at up to three times the rate of population growth. (see www.planning.nsw.gov.au/tdc/ )At the same time, road freight traffic is increasing rapidly. (see www.btre.gov.au/recent.htm)

Although ‘right-moding’ strategies might encourage public transport use for trips between urban centres and sub-centres and walking or cycling for short trips, the current reality of urban Australian life is that 80 per cent of urban household trips outside centres are best served by car travel. Relatively sustainable mass transport does not yet compete with the private vehicle.

Admittedly, in the future, low or zero emission vehicles will solve this problem. However, as greenhouse gas impacts on global warming are cumulative, early reduction using intelligent transport systems is attractive.

For this reason, the CSIRO has included research into intelligent transport systems, together with research to develop hydrogen-ready vehicle technologies, as part of its Energy Transformed Flagship.

Six new CSIRO National Research Flagships are addressing issues of key importance to Australia. Energy Transformed, launched by NSW Premier Bob Carr and the Hon Bob Baldwin, representing the Australian Science Minister Peter McGauran at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle on 31 October 2003, aims to develop low-emission energy technologies and systems that will deliver cost-competitive energy services and meet the economic, social and environmental needs of Australians.

Since an extensive network of instrumented roads of the type used in Paris would be prohibitively expensive in Australia’s relatively low density cities, initial research is focusing on a paradigm shift in traffic management. This approach means that some individual vehicles in the traffic stream serve as the ‘eyes’ of area-wide real-time traffic management systems.

The research enables science to emulate the human traffic controller: seeing via vision systems, basing decisions on advanced transport and traffic behaviour algorithms, and making this analysis instantly with parallel computing. The work builds on the CSIRO’s vision systems experience applied on roads, such as Safe-T-Cam (a previous winner of The Warren Centre's Rolls-Royce Qantas Award).

In view of a European survey, which showed the major hurdles to intelligent transport systems adoption are market rather than technology-based, allied research will investigate consumer and community preferences, as well as considering greenhouse gas/fuel savings impacts of alternative intelligent transport service options.

The CSIRO was a significant contributor to the The Warren Centre’s Sustainable Transport in Sustainable Cities project. Further information on CSIRO’s ITS programs can be obtained from Dr Nariida Smith at nariida.smith@csiro.au or on (02) 9490 5466. Further information about the Energy Transformed Flagship program can be obtained from Dr John Wright at john.wright@csiro.au or on (02) 9490 8666.

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