North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Cameras capture city’s traffic mayhem
Hidden away in a dimly lit room on the North Shore sit the eyes and ears of the Auckland roading network. And they have seen it all.
Monitoring more than 630 cameras for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, staff at the Auckland Transport Operation Centre (ATOC) have instant access to live vision from across the city’s local roads and motorways.
Everything from car crashes to escaped cows meandering on the motorway to confused drivers going the wrong way and thieves making a getaway is beamed into the centre, based at Smales Farm.
The information the centre receives from movable and static cameras plays a big part in how Aucklanders navigate their way across town or out of the city.
From the operations centre, traffic light sequencing can be changed, motorway on-ramp signals triggered, messaging signs and speed control signs altered, and alerts sent via official social media accounts to warn motorists of accidents, delays and detours.
The live footage also helps operations staff accurately direct emergency services and traffic contractors to incidents, and support police in tracking vehicles and people of interest.
As drivers increasingly rely on up-to-the-minute travel information for the daily commute and holiday weekends heading out of the city, ATOC is making use of evolving technology from both within and outside the organisation.
However, ATOC team leader Matthew Harper said the realtime cameras always win out over the Google traffic maps.
Harper and his crew work 12-hour shifts monitoring and managing the entire Auckland transport network via a wall of monitors. They are alert to anything out of the ordinary - like animals on the road and irregular congestion - and the predictable like crashes in wet weather and Friday evening peak traffic.
Minor incidents can sometimes have more impact on traffic flow than significant events.
After three years in the job, Harper has a few bugbears. Drivers who ‘‘needlessly’’ run out of fuel and those who are involved in a minor fender-bender and get out of their car into the motorway lanes without pulling over, can cause unnecessary disruption to the traffic network, according to Harper.
ATOC is managed and financed by the NZ Transport Agency and Auckland Transport.