Sydney Harbour Bridge smart signs allow faster incident response time

Challenge

The Sydney Harbour Bridge Electronic Lane Change System (ELCS) manages bi-directional traffic flow of 160,000 vehicles per day, remotely from TMC 8km’s away.

Ongoing legacy equipment failures on the ELCS recently reached the point where they became unacceptable. Existing software installed in 1998, was no longer maintainable.

Solution

SAGE was engaged by RMS to assist with the design, upgrade and live cutover of the ELCS to improve reliability and provide RMS with a base design for use at similar >locations.

The main benefit of the project is increased safety for road users and a system that can be supported for the next 15 years.

SAGE’s engagement with RMS on this project is similar to that sought by Sydney Airport, including the collaboration model, number of personnel involved, project duration, key roles and responsibilities, and technology platforms (Siemens, Schneider, Profibus) and ongoing scheduled and corrective maintenance.

SAGE Automation provided personnel to RMS in the following roles: Project Management, Design Authority (Consulting), Systems Engineering, and Maintenance Support.

Key responsibilities of the major roles included:

Project Manager:

• Developing project plans
• Monitoring budgets, scheduling resources Measuring project success against budget, original scope and business objectives
• Ensuring the quality assurance requirements for the project are met
• Managing risks and escalated issues from project team members
• Managing all subcontracts

Design Authority:

• Conducting site audits for information gathering
• Developing the communication network specification
• Providing technical direction to the development team
• Providing guidance, assistance and supervision to the project’s engineers as required
• Auditing the software/database aspects of the final item to ensure compliance with the design, drawings and associated requirements
  
  

Systems Engineers, including Technical Lead:

• Providing software/HMI technical direction to the development team
• Ensuring engineering tasks are met and the system functions as per expectations
• Developing the database for the system upgrade Providing technical direction to the development team Offered as embedded engineering for software and HMI development
• Providing guidance, assistance and supervision to the project’s engineers
• Embedded engineer for the cutover and commissioning phases
• Auditing the Software/HMI/Database aspects of the final item to ensure compliance with the design, drawings and associated requirements
• Developing documentation

Outcome

Sydney's iconic bridge now enjoys state-of-the-art lane changing technologies to reduce congestion and provide seamless experience to regular road users and international visitors alike. Watch the video for a full recap:

The project was also awarded Winner of the 2015 Zenith PACE awards for the Transport, Power and Infrastructure category.