They are the eyes in the sky helping to get traffic moving faster after road incidents and inspecting hard-to-get-at parts of bridge and road infrastructure.
Over 70 drones are being deployed to give traffic responders unprecedented visibility from above, supporting the work of the Transport Management Centre (TMC).
They are being deployed around road crashes and peak hour choke points, with the visibility they provide allowing detours to be put in place sooner to ease delays and clear traffic jams. Clearing traffic sooner lowers the risk of bump-on crashes that can occur at the end of traffic snarls.
The drone fleet is also helping to improve real-time information relayed on apps like Live Traffic.
Led by a new chief pilot, Transport for NSW will deploy drones during morning and afternoon peaks and during holiday traffic periods when the network is under pressure and incidents can have negative knock-on effects.
Providing a dependable line of sight outside of TMC's existing traffic-monitoring camera network, drones were used in the most recent school holidays, with 160 traffic monitoring and incident response missions totalling nearly 100 hours in the air.
They have provided invaluable assistance in understanding holiday traffic in bottleneck areas like Blackheath in the Blue Mountains and will be used when race fans head to Bathurst for the start of the Supercars season opener this month.
In an Australian first, Transport for NSW pilots are now able to remotely launch and operate drones mounted to TMC response vehicles, getting an eye in the sky sooner.
Transport uses drones for asset inspections, including bridges and roads, and is investigating how they can be used to assist with other high risk work activities carried out by staff.
Projected cost-saving to the people of NSW is more than $71 million in travel time, $24 million in secondary incidents and $23 million in vehicle operating costs.
Minister for Roads John Graham said:
"With an eye in the sky, detours can be put in place faster and information provided on apps like Live Traffic. No one wants to be stuck at the back of a queue of traffic and drones will help reduce the severity of traffic jams around road incidents."
"We've also utilised this technology during major events, including Sydney World Pride, providing vital information to deploy extra public transport services and monitoring for emergencies.
"There are more than 1700 CCTV cameras across the Greater Sydney Road network, and our drone capabilities supplement these, by providing an extended line of sight in areas not covered by CCTV."
Transport for NSW Executive Director Customer Journey Management Craig Moran said:
"Drones are incredibly effective at closing gaps in what we can see across the network. Not every location is suitable for CCTV installation, whereas one drone can be deployed from almost anywhere across the network to survey a wide range of areas.
"As part of the project Transport for NSW has appointed a Chief Pilot to manage the fleet of 70 drones across Transport, set up live streaming capabilities, establish a drone maintenance and innovation hub, and become accredited to remotely fly drones in the field from the Transport Management Centre.
"The drone team carry all maintenance and develop our innovative field operations solutions from the new Leichhardt drone hub."
