In June 2020, amidst a world of unprecedented change and disruption, the Victorian Government invested in an initiative aimed at supporting communities respond to the challenges that Covid-19 presented on travel behaviours. For example people’s reluctance to use public transport and moving to road based transport instead. 

The programme objectives were to address anticipated congestion by maximizing the utilization of existing road space through the implementation of advanced technology, more operational staff and by obtaining network-wide situational awareness. Through project workstreams delivering across systems, analytics, people and process and infrastructure, the Smarter Roads programme accelerated out of the starting blocks at lightning pace, supported by a broad team of specialist to beat the impending return to the office.

 

A programme of this scale and breadth, delivered by the Department, had not been done for some time which opened the door to innovation, challenge, criticism and change. Mobilising a team to deliver a wholesale change to the way existing information was utilised, improving and speeding up the delivery and access across the whole department. Enabling rapid field asset delivery against robust informed decisions on asset deployment .
 

With a once in a generational transformative programme operating at pace, with resource changes constantly evolving, with scope clarity being established, there are a myriad of areas that the programme is able to provide insights for future programmes. The presentation will touch on some of the lessons learned, the hiccups and triumphs and a glimpse at the achievements realised to date from this investment.