Austrian firm Kapsch TrafficCom is helping upgrade Queensland’s Bruce Highway with an intelligent transport system (ITS), jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments.

The Cooperative & Automated Vehicle Initiative (Cavi), delivered by Queensland’s Department of Transport & Main Roads (DTMR), piloted the system within the Ipswich Connected Vehicle Pilot between September 2021 and 2022. The pilot validated the crash reduction benefits for the use cases tested.

The pilot consisted of 29 signalised intersections using R-ITS-S roadside intelligent transport systems stations and a central facility to test six safety use cases.

“This project gives regional road users the chance to explore the C-ITS service along the highway before it becomes commercially available in vehicles, which we are expecting on Australian roads in 2024-25,” said Mark Bailey, Queensland’s minister for transport and main roads. “My department is focused on unlocking the crash reduction benefits of C-ITS. This system is expected to reduce crashes by 20%, contributing towards the Queensland government’s vision of zero road deaths and serious injuries, and save around $2bn over the next 30 years.”

Since the Ipswich pilot’s conclusion, Kapsch TrafficCom has supplied and remotely commissioned an additional 37 Kapsch road-side units (RSUs) along the Bruce Highway, covering over 1500km along the northeast coast of Australia, between Brisbane and Cairns.

The RSUs are located at traffic lights where the Bruce Highway passes through townships. The RSUs broadcast signal status and timing to connected road users, providing them with warnings of red lights and pedestrian presence at crossings.

“As traffic volumes increase, connected vehicle technology will play a major role in improving safety and efficiency of the transport network, said Matthew McLeish, executive vice president at Kapsch TrafficCom. “Bruce Highway is one of the major traffic arteries in Queensland and Kapsch TrafficCom’s C-ITS technology gives regional road users the chance to experience the benefits of this technology as it starts to become more commonly available in vehicles. The project implementation and pilot execution have created a blueprint for C-ITS projects in Australia and internationally. The collaborative approach between Kapsch TrafficCom and DTMR was essential to delivering quality.”

The Bruce Highway C-ITS extension builds on the Ipswich pilot, which focused on trialling the core system functionality and developing capability for operators to operate, maintain and monitor the hardware. The findings of the trial were positive, with most users saying they would continue using the equipment.

Kapsch TrafficCom is a provider of transportation technology for sustainable mobility with projects in more than fifty countries. Innovations in the applications of tolling, tolling services, traffic management and demand management contribute to a healthy world without congestion.

Kapsch TrafficCom, headquartered in Vienna, has subsidiaries and branches in more than 25 countries. In its 2021-22 financial year, 4220 employees generated revenues of about €520m.