If you've driven on a motorway in Australia recently, you may have seen a large vehicle known informally as a 'crash cushion' helping protect motorists in need.
More formally known as a Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA), they are designed to create a physical buffer to protect road workers, motorists and vehicles from potential high-speed accidents.
Whilst TMAs have been around for a while now, on Sydney's Hills M2 Motorway we've supported our client Transurban in delivering an Australian-first custom-built, fully-electric TMA to patrol the Hills M2.
Not only custom designed to protect motorists and road workers, this vehicle will help address carbon emissions and protect the environment in a number of ways.
Why an electric TMA?
TMAs idle for long periods of time when deployed to respond to an incident, so they are well suited for electrification. This will see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants from incident response activities.
On the surface, the new vehicle is largely the same you will see anywhere on the roads, but this one does not have a diesel drive train.
As it is powered by a 220kWh electric battery, it has a lot fewer moving parts, is a smoother and quieter ride, and still has all the safety requirements needed for such an important vehicle.
This TMA is expected to save around 50 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, compared to an equivalent diesel TMA.
Pictured left to right: Sarah McCarthy - Ventia, Donny Yap - Ventia, Sahin Tekyildiz - Ventia, Edward Djundja - Ventia, Erin Mcknight - Transurban, Jerome Laxale - Member for Bennelong, Chad Seghabi - Ventia
Top image: Ventia and Transurban's new fully electric Incident Repsonse Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA)
Part of our holistic approach to sustainability is to continuously identify new ways to reduce our CO2 emissions, and a large element of this is the electrification of our fleet.
"A lot of times with these types of projects, an off the shelf solution does not exist," explains Ventia's Alexandra Monson, Group Manager Sustainability .
Ventia's approach to the design of this TMA was that it needed do the same thing as a regular TMA - compliant with the safety requirements for these vehicles and most importantly, remove reliance on diesel while still working effectively and efficiently
Edward Djundja, Ventia's NSW Motorways & Tunnels Contract Manager is looking forward to the operational benefits the TMA will provide.
"Currently, TMAs are used across all our projects in Sydney. They generally travel up to 150km per day, patrolling the motorway keeping people safe," he explains.
"We'll be deploying this TMA on the Hills M2, one of Sydney's busiest motorways with 135,000 average daily trips through north-west Sydney."
Pictured left to right: Chad Seghabi Ventia, Hon Chris Bowen MP, Amy Hogan Transurban
Partnering for success
Ventia has a long and proud history of working with Transurban across their Australian assets, and particularly in supporting their sustainability objectives.
Both Ventia and Transurban share a commitment to operating and maintaining sustainable infrastructure, which means we pursue opportunities to do things better and with positive sustainability outcomes for the environment and people.
We worked with supplier SEA Electric to identify the appropriate truck and battery configuration for this application as well as the representatives from J1 LED provider of the attenuator components, to ensure everything would fit together and be compatible.
Both Ventia and Transurban are committed to achieving net zero emissions, so we bring shared purpose to our work together, making intentional decisions for sustainable operations and maintenance explains Alex.
70% of Australia's emissions relate to infrastructure, so there's a huge opportunity here to act quickly to combat the worst impacts of climate change
"We can bring ideas and innovations to life by working on them together, leveraging strengths of different organisations, sustainability is everyone's responsibility."