Drones to help NSW government spot traffic snarls on roads

The state government's unveiled a fleet of more than 70 drones, to help spot traffic snarls on the state's roads.

Transcript

00:00 It's the nerve centre of the state's transport network.

00:05 Using thousands of cameras they can see drivers' frustrations, but they can't hear their screams.

00:10 I've been clear there could be six months of traffic disruption.

00:15 I've spent time there talking to the team, I've seen the improvements.

00:19 There clearly need to be more.

00:21 The government says the changes to lanes and signage on the Roselle interchange have already

00:26 improved traffic flow near the Anzac Bridge, but there's still major congestion for the

00:30 approaching vehicles on Victoria Road, so tomorrow they'll be tweaking the traffic

00:35 lights minute by minute to try to keep things moving.

00:38 We can change traffic light settings anywhere in the state from the transport management

00:42 centre in real time.

00:44 Motorists are being asked to consider taking the bus or changing the timing of their trips.

00:49 We do have issues where everybody tends to leave at the same time, so if people can help

00:54 us spread that out a little bit, that can help us in terms of how we're managing the

00:58 network.

00:59 Transport officials say they'll be watching every moment of tomorrow's peak hour run,

01:02 and they've already started using this fleet of drones to help them spot traffic snarls

01:07 where their existing cameras can't.

01:09 More than 70 of them will be positioned around the state, feeding high definition video back

01:14 to base.

01:16 The government says they'll be especially useful on roads outside Sydney, like on the

01:20 M1 motorway and the Great Western Highway.

01:23 We can actually see something about two kilometres away.

01:26 What we do is we make sure that we just get the situational awareness to help for diversion

01:30 routes.

01:31 But there's no getting around some choke points, you just have to get through them.

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