By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
AN installater of failing wireless traffic sensors on the Monash Freeway upgrade has attacked VicRoads’ rationale for using the devices.
The installer of 30 years’ experience said the findings placed doubt on the accuracy of the $100 million freeway management system, its travel time estimates signage and the traffic control systems on the freeway’s access ramps.
Last week, the Journal revealed a VicRoads product evaluation report in August had found a “serious problem” with the 2376 wireless sensors installed as part of the upgrade. The report stated it could cost more than $10 million over 10 years to maintain and replace the devices.
The supplier, Sensys Networks, had claimed the devices were “virtually maintenance free” and had 10-year battery lives.
But the report found one in five devices installed within two to four years in Victoria and Western Australia were failing to supply data.
In response, VicRoads’s chief operating officer Bruce Gidley told the Journal the report “assumes that a single faulty batch will be repeated on an ongoing basis, which has not been the case, therefore it [the report] is flawed and incorrect”.
Mr Gidley said if alternative technology had been used, it would have closed parts and all of the freeway for extended time.
But the installer said he’d never known a freeway to be fully closed to replace loops. He said the time taken to replace a set of two studs a lane was comparable to replacing a loop: “Any technology used requires lane closures.”
He cast doubt on Mr Gidley’s “a singly faulty batch” claim. “Why are installers still removing and replacing them if that was the case?”
Dennis Mann, general manager of Sensys Networks’ distributor Central Weighing, did not respond by deadline. A spokeswoman for Roads Minister Terry Mulder said he was on leave.
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