Melbourne’s growing traffic is set to be reduced through the implementation of the Andrews Labor Government’s first-ever Congestion Management Team.
“Getting more people in transport jobs means we can keep the city moving – the new dedicated Congestion Management Team will bust congestion on some of Melbourne’s busiest roads,” Minister for Roads and Road Safety Ben Carroll said.
Minister Carroll also said the team of six expert traffic managers will respond in real-time to bottlenecks, incidents, and breakdowns in three of Melbourne’s traffic hot spots by May.
The new team will also optimise the network performance by identifying small scale changes that can improve traffic flow such as extending turn lanes, currently causing queues, and blocking through lanes.
The Congestion Management Team joins the other 100 new jobs the Labor Government created in order to deal with the increasing congestion in Melbourne. It is also part of the Government’s $340 million package to keep people moving on the state’s roads.
The additional jobs include 12 new Incident Response Service Officers in six new response vans. Fourteen traffic signal engineer cadets will also begin a two-year training program. These will allow the team to bolster the on-road fleet to clear incidents quickly and get traffic moving.
The unprecedented investment in new transport jobs is on top of a significant increase in congestion-busting technology. Over 500 extra traffic monitoring cameras, 200 wireless traffic sensors and an extra 200 cameras are expected to be installed by the end of June.
“These new resources add even more capability to this world-class team – we have the tools and people in place to tackle congestion and keep traffic flowing,” Minister Carroll said.
The latest traffic volume data shows that travel patterns have shifted as Melbourne emerges from the pandemic. Trips on the city’s arterial road network are rapidly increasing compared to the volume of trips on freeways.
With many continuing to work from home, freeway volumes remain below pre-COVID levels at around 94 per cent. Meanwhile, arterial roads like Hallam North Road eclipse their pre-pandemic volume by 100 per cent on two occasions since March.
The Princes Highway in Werribee and Warrigal Road in Chadstone ran more than 95 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the last week.