NSW Farmers welcomes practical Live Traffic upgrade

The state’s peak agricultural body says a new move to allow live updates on all roads in NSW stands to save lives and livelihoods during future natural disasters.
 
On Friday, Regional Transport Minister Sam Farraway announced local government will be given access to update local road data on the state’s Live Traffic NSW platform, meaning closures, delays and repairs on any road will be visible from a single app. Until now, only state roads were included in the system, which feeds into navigation systems such as Google Maps. This meant information on flood or fire-affected local roads resided on separate local government platforms, causing confusion for motorists.
 
NSW Farmers Business, Economics and Trade Committee chair John Lowe said members had been calling for the government to adopt this sort of common-sense, practical solution.
 
“We are thrilled the Minister has listened to farmers and communities, because this could be a real game-changer in terms of safety,” Mr Lowe said.
 
“When an area is in flood for example, you either had to know where to find each council’s road closure updates or risk turning around and criss-crossing your way around the closure.
 
“Even when roadworks are occurring, this will mean farmers and people travelling in regional areas can now plan better to avoid delays.
 
“It will be great for local government to have access to this platform, it won’t cost them anything, and it will be a big win for regional motorists.”

According to the NSW Government, during natural disasters the Live Traffic NSW website and mobile app traffic spiked up to 33 times the usual daily volume, with up to 660,000 sessions in one day, demonstrating the demand for real-time traffic information in a crisis.
 
Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway said the NSW Government had created the ‘OneRoad’ platform to allow councils to feed their data into Live Traffic NSW, so road impacts across local and state roads were all in the one place. There were 22 local government areas chosen to launch the platform, with a staged rollout planned to bring all remaining council areas online by 2024.
 
“It just goes to show that sometimes all you need is a little common-sense and the will to put it into practice to make a big difference,” Mr Lowe said.
 
“After the past couple of years of fires and floods – not to mention a global pandemic – this is exactly the sort of good news regional communities will welcome.
 
“We thank the Minister for listening to us, and working with us to find these common-sense solutions to everyday problems.”
 
The new information from 22 LGAs – including parts of the Northern Rivers and North Coast, the New England and Northern Tablelands – will be available on Live Traffic NSW and third-party apps from October.