Motorway speed limit to be varied as part of trial to improve safety.
Speed limits on Melbourne’s M80 motorway will be temporarily changed as part of a trial to improve safety and reduce congestion.
Variable speeds are due to take effect on the Sunshine Avenue section for Greensborough-bound traffic this month and last for 10 days.
M80 Ring Road project director Trevor Boyd says the limits will be changed during the trial to reflect current traffic conditions and that the impacts on safety and congestion will be monitored.
“We have chosen the Sunshine Avenue section of the M80 Ring Road as the trial site as traffic often builds up where it reduces from four to three to two lanes,” Boyd says.
“By reducing the speed limit where the congestion occurs and slowing the flow of traffic, we expect this will ease the bottleneck and improve safety where lanes are reduced and merge.”
The trial is a joint initiative involving VicRoads and the University of Crete in Greece.
The trial aims to determine appropriate freeway speeds, how to improve safety during heavy traffic conditions and ways to alleviate congestion.
Normal speed will be reinstated once the trial is completed.
Further stages of the trial will be carried out in 2015.
VicRoads is planning to implement other long term measures to ease the bottleneck in the Greensborough direction between Furlong Road and Sunshine Avenue.
“We will be installing a barrier between the Sunshine Avenue exit lane and the three freeway lanes to help reduce traffic weaving, queue jumping and related crashes,” Boyd says.