Turning onto a fast country highway is one of the tenser moves you make behind the wheel. From 3 August, the Golden Highway near Cassilis will host a NSW-first trial built to take some of that risk away: a speed limit that lowers itself only when it's needed.
The system is called a Rural Intersection Speed Zone, and it sits where the Golden Highway meets Ulan Road, between Merriwa and Dunedoo in the Upper Hunter.
How the smart speed zone works
Radar watches for vehicles on Ulan Road approaching the highway. When one shows up, Variable Speed Limit Signs drop the Golden Highway limit from 100km/h to 70km/h for the short window while that vehicle merges. Once the road is clear, the limit climbs back to normal.
Dylan Anderson
The point is to give slower vehicles, like trucks and farm machinery, a safer gap to pull into. It's a smarter approach than blanketing a fast highway with a permanent low limit.
The whole unit is solar-powered and self-contained, with the detection, signs and monitoring built into one package. It was designed and built by Transport for NSW's Operational Technology Infrastructure team at Yennora in Western Sydney.
What it means for drivers
You won't be crawling through a new 70 zone every trip. The lower limit only appears when a vehicle is waiting to turn in, so most of the time you'll drive the usual 100km/h.
When the sign does show 70, treat it like any other speed limit and ease off. Variable message signs go up around two weeks before the switch-on to give locals fair warning. The trial runs for 12 months.
Where it fits in NSW's Smarter Highways push
The trial is one piece of the Smarter Highways Program, a run of tech trials across regional NSW aimed at making country roads safer and more reliable. Similar setups already operate in Victoria, but this is the first of its kind switched on in NSW.
Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison said the approach reflects how road safety is changing. "Today, as our roads become busier and the vehicles using them change, technology is helping us tackle the next generation of road safety challenges," she said.
If the Cassilis trial works, expect the idea to spread to other high-speed rural intersections around the state.
Source: NSW Government
Dylan Anderson
