TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
The future transport and mobility sector in Australia is characterised by shifts from ownership to ‘user ship’, transportation to mobility, and internal combustion engines to electric power trains.
There are over 15 connected and automated vehicle trials underway in Australia, supported by a robust research and development (R&D) infrastructure. This includes the iMove Cooperative Research Centre, the Australian Integrated Multimodal Ecosystem (AIMES) and the national science agency CSIRO’s Data61, a world leader in data science research and engineering.
Strong government support exists at all levels for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and emerging technologies in automated vehicles. Australia has announced an ambitious reform agenda to have an end-toend regulatory system in place by 2020 for automated vehicles at all levels of automation. The Australian Government is releasing bandwidth for dedicated Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) and spending over A$200 million on satellite and GPS technology. Government transport authorities also provide open datasets to industry.
These developments are spurring activity and investment by transport authorities, automotive OEMs, and local and international firms. Says Munish Sharma, Trade Commissioner, Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) “Australia is pursuing new transport technologies that could make a significant contribution to the liveability of our cities. Australia launched its first driverless urban metro this year and has dozens of demand response bus deployments under trial. Connected and automated vehicles, mobility as a service and new mobile phone infringement technologies are just some of the new technologies under development.”
Key sectors within Australian future transport and mobility are: Intelligent market was valued at $211.2 million in 2016 with the industry expected to generate more than $16 billion in revenue by 2025.
The cellular connectivity market for passenger cars in Australia was valued at $117.8 million in 2016.
Australian governments are taking a nationally consistent approach. Regulatory reform balances safety with emerging new automated vehicle technologies, so that technologies can be developed and adopted as soon as possible. There are many innovations like Sydney-based Baraja has developed a 3D machine vision system for CAVs using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology and Tritium is manufacturing and supplying world-leading electric vehicle charging infrastructure to Europe and North America. Australian companies such as Seeing Machines are collaborating with Volvo Trucks Australia, Ron Finemore Transport and Monash University to deliver the first industry-led Cooperative Research Centre program studying heavy vehicle driver behaviour in a naturalistic on-road setting.
Major OEM carmakers and suppliers such as Audi, Bosch, Hyundai, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla and Volvo are trialling semi-autonomous vehicles on Sydney and Melbourne’s intra-city motorways. Emerging automated vehicle providers such as Navya, EasyMile, Aurrigo and Local Motors are trialling and demonstrating their technologies in partnership with Australian universities, local companies and transport authorities.
Intelligent Transport Systems
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have delivered important but incremental changes to Australia’s transport systems.
ITS involves the utilisation of Vehicleto- Everything (V2X) technology and Australian companies are at the forefront of this sector. For example, Cohda Wireless is solving urban GPS blackspot positioning problems in New York City.