Sydney Harbour Bridge traffic management: its history, development and operation

This paper examines many aspects of traffic management, planning and control on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and its approaches. It covers their origins, development and present day practices. It will be shown that numerous traffic systems were leading edge on a world scale. The lessons learnt on the bridge and the equipment specially developed for it have gone on to benefit other works throughout the state. The genesis of present day intelligent transport systems (ITS) can be seen in the technical developments that took place on the Harbour Bridge. Particular focus is given to road tolling, tidal flow and motorised movable medians, incident management/driver aid and monitoring systems.