WestConnex is the largest road transport infrastructure project in Australia. Once finished it will form the central spine of Sydney’s motorway network, providing a long overdue underground link between the M4 and M5 to create a seamless motorway without traffic lights. It will provide high quality motorway connections from Western Sydney to Sydney Airport and Port Botany, supporting Sydney’s forecast growth in population and employment along these corridors. WestConnex will also ensure greater connectivity between the greater west, the south, the south west and the inner city hubs and provide relief for hundreds of thousands of motorists stuck in congestion every day.
By easing traffic congestion, WestConnex will improve travel time reliability for all the tradies, couriers and freight operators who rely on Sydney’s roads every day.
SICE has been awarded, by the joint venture of LendLease, Bouygues, Samsung C&T (LBSJV) a contract to deliver (Design and build) the following systems:
- IOMCS head-end hardware and software;
- OMCS head-end hardware and software;
- Communications Networks; and
- PMCS + PLC Network.
SICE will also design all the Traffic Control Systems on the tunnel including:
- CCTV;
- AVIDS;
- METS, FETS and Telephone Systems;
- Tunnel Closure;
- Driver Advisory System; and
- Vehicle Detection System.
SICE’s in-house OMCS software, SIDERA, will ultimately manage the traffic and plant systems of the M4-M5 Link Tunnels. The M4-M5 Link Tunnels is one of the most critical components of WestConnex, featuring twin tunnels between the New M4 at Haberfield and the New M5 at St Peters. Each tunnel will be approximately 7.5 kilometres long and will accommodate up to four lanes of traffic in each direction.
SICE is currently delivering the OMCS head-end systems (including SIDERA) for the previous WestConnex stages, M4 (Stage 1) and New M5 (Stage 2).
By delivering SIDERA for the M4-M5 Link Tunnels, all the stages of the WestConnex motorway will be locally controlled by the same state of the art OMCS software.
In addition to the local OMCSs, the WestConnex Motorway Control Centre will be provided with an Integrated OMCS (IOMCS) system, also based on an advanced version of SIDERA. By means of the IOMCS, the WestConnex motorway will achieve an unparalleled level of integration of traffic systems and operations. A single team of operations personnel will monitor and control the 33 kilometre WestConnex motorway from one Motorway Control Centre at the St Peters Interchange. This team will operate the motorway using IOMCS which in turn will control the motorway through the distributed OMCS systems. The IOMCS will be able to provide more efficient and safer journey experience to the motorists of WestConnex.
The contract between SICE and LSBJV was signed in September 2018 and the new M4-M5 Link Tunnels is expected to open in 2023.
