NSW gov to house drones permanently at traffic hotspots

The NSW government is expanding a drone program for traffic monitoring, installing them at key points along major arterial roads where they can be remotely operated.

Image credit: Transport for NSW

To date, drones have been operated by pilots where visual line of sight can be maintained, although there were plans last year to mount drones to Transport for NSW response vehicles and remotely operate them.

It’s not clear if that went ahead, but the government has now decided to house drones along road corridors that suffer from frequent traffic snarls.

The first locations to get “drone-in-a-box units” are the M1 at Mooney Mooney, north of Sydney, and on the Hume Highway at Narellan in the city’s south-western fringe.

“In a first of its kind approval by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, teams will be able to carry out beyond visual line-of-sight operations beside traffic travelling at highway speeds of more than 100km/hr,” the government said in a statement.

The drones will be “fully supervised” by pilots in a control centre and be “equipped with extra fail-safe measures, approved fight areas, and onboard diagnostics.”

Live streams from the drone fleet provide situational awareness on incidents that involve lane closures on these busy routes in and out of Sydney.

“We’re rolling out these drone-in-a-box units across key routes in Sydney, and we’re exploring opportunities for more drone-in-a-box units in key regional corridors,” minister for regional transport Jenny Aitchison said.

“Each drone-in-a-box will be able to cover a distance of 8km from its home – so 16km of road. 

“They can charge in just over half an hour, so it’s a very quick turnaround until they’re ready for their next mission.” 

Transport for NSW executive director of operations management Craig Moran added that “remote flying means [we] can keep a closer eye on known hotspots, and stream information to our commanders and emergency patrollers before they arrive at the scene.”

“It also frees up our field pilots to respond to other issues on the network.”