Page 1321 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 April 2013
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It is also important to remember that the goal of traffic calming measures is to improve road safety and to benefit the residential environment in Canberra. In this way they benefit the whole community.
The government has been very keen that the outcomes of the current studies go through thorough community engagement. The consultation process has been extensive and included letterbox drops of a newsletter and survey form to all relevant suburbs, an online survey for the wider community and of course the drop-in information sessions that I referred to earlier. The newsletters and questionnaires were also placed in libraries and shopfronts. I have also issued two media releases, and community noticeboards were placed in the Canberra Times to alert the community to the various stages of these studies. Roads ACT has also placed a lot of detailed material on the TAMS website.
On a separate issue relating to these traffic calming studies, I would like to update the Assembly about the use of bluetooth technology to collect traffic data for these studies. This technology can determine vehicle speeds and travel times as well as gauge the route choices that vehicles make. It is particularly useful in determining the speed of vehicles and the level of rat running in suburbs.
Bluetooth data collection is used for traffic studies across Australia and worldwide. It is more convenient, accurate and cost-effective than older data collection methods such as numberplate surveys. Notably, it is also less intrusive than the numberplate survey method.
I am advised that any residents concerned about their privacy can be assured that the government cannot identify individuals from the data, and the technology does not capture any personal information. The technology accesses a string of numbers and letters from bluetooth devices that are switched on in vehicles passing through the target area. This string is called a MAC address. I understand that this address cannot be related to a phone number or other personal details and there is no database of MAC addresses.
In addition, rather than recording the actual MAC address, the loggers only record an encrypted form of the address. The company that performs the bluetooth logging does not have the encryption algorithm, which makes it impossible to unscramble the encrypted address. TAMS is only provided with a final report on traffic data from the company; it does not get records of any MAC addresses.
In view of recent interest in this issue, I have asked TAMS to include information on bluetooth data collection on its website. For completeness, I have also asked TAMS to seek advice from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to ensure that the bluetooth technology is being used in the best possible way to protect privacy.
In closing, I am pleased to provide Assembly members with an update about these important local area traffic management studies. Sometimes traffic calming projects can draw a negative response from the community, but it is key work to make our neighbourhoods safer, to reduce incidents of speeding, rat running, accidents and
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