Signalling new era for the Harbour Bridge

By CATHY ARONSON

The Harbour Bridge's new million-dollar traffic lane signals are up and running after Transit ironed out problems with its technology.

Transit removed its 20-year-old mesh and bulb lights and replaced them with a computer display screen in December in preparation for its new software.

But it was not working until last week because the new program had trouble adjusting to the lane changes on the bridge.

Tyco Integrated Systems won the $10 million contract last year to install its traffic-control program, Odyssey.

It replaced Serco's TMI system used on seven existing overhead message boards on Auckland motorways.

Transit traffic operations manager Blair Monk said the program found it hard to adjust to the Harbour Bridge's lane changes.

The moveable lane barrier changes the direction of the nine lanes at least four times a day to accommodate different traffic flows.

Mr Monk said the program was not able to make automatic decisions and Transit relies on 24-hour manual operators to change systems once the system indicates there is a problem.

"We could still run them manually, but it's a case of we wanted more functionality with this new system.

"It takes time to make sure everything is operational and there was a lot of bugs to iron out of the software.

"We don't want to have the things going crazy and causing accidents."

He said Tyco would have to absorb any extra costs because of programming problems.

The new system measures traffic speed and how many cars are on the motorway. It reacts to accidents by changing signs to red crosses and arrows to move vehicles out of lanes that are blocked. If a lane is clear the signs remain blank.

The old system had green arrows to show which lanes to use, before the lane barriers were introduced.

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