This week is National Road Safety Week. Traffic injury is the biggest killer of Australian children under 15 and the second-biggest killer of all Australians aged between 15 and 24 (NRSW). 50 people walking are killed on NSW roads and streets every year and this figure is trending up. Many of these people are killed waiting at signals or taking risks to cross streets because signal wait times are too long.
Traffic signals are quite literally at the intersection of our urban spaces, transport policy, and pedestrian safety. I wrote directly to the Secretary of Transport for NSW (TfNSW) Josh Murray “on behalf of WalkSydney to request that Transport for NSW make SCATS [Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System] traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible in the interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes”. My letter was co-signed by the President of WalkSydney (Tegan Mitchell) and President of Better Streets (Sara Stace).
On the 13th of May I received a reply to my request, which along with factual errors and misrepresentations stated:
Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.
Brenda Hoang (Deputy Secretary, Finance Technology and Commercial Division, Group Chief Financial Officer, TfNSW), on behalf of the Secretary for Transport (Josh Murray)
Letter (OTS25/01450) dated 2025-05-09 (received 2025-05-13)
This blog post reproduces my response letter in full (which corrects factual errors and misrepresentations in the response I received) along with my initial request letter and TfNSW’s initial response. I hope you may learn something interesting from them.
Data recently presented to the TfNSW Active Transport Community of Practice (2024-06-20) documented higher rates of unsafe crossing in the City of Sydney due to dangerously long waits at signals, aligning with international evidence (Martin, A. (2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London), Baass K G (1989). Review of European and North American practice of pedestrian signal timing. Prepared for RTAC Annual Conference Calgary, Alberta.)
People walking and using other active modes in NSW often face long and unpredictable waits at intersections. This is well understood – a 2020 report by Gehl Architects on Sydney stated “The reduction in waiting times has improved pedestrian amenity, however further improvements can be made”. Improvement in priority for pedestrians is listed as action 7 of focus area 5.1 of the current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy:
Action 7: Improve priority for walking trips in centres, towns and villages, such as reallocating road space to widen footpaths and providing more frequent and longer duration pedestrian crossing phases at traffic signals.
Action 7, of focus area 5.1 “Enable 15-minute neighbourhoods”, current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy 2022 (pg 14). Listed as an “Immediate actions (completed or initiated within 5 years)”
Understanding signal timing is crucial for the public to evaluate progress toward this action, to evaluate signal timing against the City of Sydney’s excellent target of “A maximum wait time at intersections of 45 seconds for people walking with a target of 30 seconds” and to assess compliance with the updated mandatory TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy.
Without access to data, the public cannot learn whether outcomes are improving.
I have previously written on the design and politics of traffic signals and how they affect people walking and riding in Sydney:
- Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons” (2022-12-19)
- Mapping pedestrian traffic light timing in Sydney, Australia (2023-06-12)
- Better Intersections, crowdsourced signal timing map (2023-06-12 – present)
- Coverage on ABC News
- Linked from the Sydney Morning Herald
- Better Intersections, crowdsourced signal timing map (2023-06-12 – present)
- Shining a Light on the Traffic Signals of Sydney (2023-07-10)
- Preliminary analysis of Better Intersections data (2024-07-01)
- Why Did the Chicken Catch the Metro? Because It Was Faster Than Crossing the Road… (2024-08-22)
Table of contents
WalkSydney Letter, 2025-05-14
(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/2025-05-14 Reply – Outgoing corro to Brenda Hoang (TfNSW) SCATS data release.pdf)
2025-05-14
Transport for NSW
231 Elizabeth Street
Sydney NSW 2000
cc.
Josh Murray ([email protected])
Roy Brown ([email protected])
Re: Public Access to SCATS Traffic Signal Phasing Data
Dear Brenda Hoang,
Thank you for your considered response.
I appreciate your open invitation of further correspondence and for myself, WalkSydney, and other interested parties to meet with your Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) team.
I have a strong appreciation of the challenging work undertaken by the TfNSW Network Operations team in designing, operating and managing the complex trade-offs required to serve the diverse stakeholders of signal timing (which I have previously stated publicly).
However, we are disappointed to learn that “Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.”, and we request a reconsideration of this position.
1. What We Are Requesting
We are requesting that Transport for NSW (TfNSW) begin regularly publishing historical signal phasing data – for example, on a monthly basis – for signalised intersections across NSW.
Specifically, we seek the cycle time of each intersection, for each cycle that runs, and the time allocated to each signal phase.
We do not request:
- Traffic volume data
- Interpretations or analysis of the data
- Guarantees of data accuracy
- Internal decision-making rationale
- Algorithmic details or communication protocols
- Technical drawings of physical infrastructure
This is about transparency, not intellectual property or cybersecurity. The data we request consists of outcomes, not inputs or methods.
2. Why you should release this information
Transparency and accountability are cornerstones of good governance. The public has already paid for the infrastructure and expertise that generates this data. The information belongs to the people of NSW. There is a strong public interest in understanding how traffic signals affect mobility and safety – there have been several recent media articles, including from the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC.
People walking and using other active modes often face long and unpredictable waits at intersections. Improvement in priority for pedestrians is an action 7 of a focus area 5.1 of the current TfNSW Active Transport Strategy:
Improve priority for walking trips in centres, towns and villages, such as reallocating road space to widen footpaths and providing more frequent and longer duration pedestrian crossing phases at traffic signals.
Action 7, of focus area 5.1 “Enable 15-minute neighbourhoods”, TfNSW Active Transport Strategy (pg 14)
The updated TfNSW Road User Space Allocation Policy states it must be followed when allocating temporal road user space:
This policy sets out the mandatory principles and requirements Transport staff must follow when allocating physical and temporal road user space safely and equitably to support the movement of people and goods and place objectives. (emphasis mine)
Transport must allocate road user space based on the following principles:
…
– allocate road user space based on the network vision and road functions, considering all road users in order of:
- walking (including equitable access for people of all abilities)
- cycling (including legal micro-mobility devices)
- public transport
- freight and servicing
- point to point transport
- general traffic and on-street parking for private motorised vehicles.
Signals are explicitly defined as in scope for temporal allocation:
Temporal allocation: Optimising how space is allocated throughout the day, week or year. This includes the dynamic control of space, access, level of priority, speed and kerbside use through signage, signals, and other technology
(7. Definitions, pg. 6. TfNSW RUSAP. Emphasis mine.)
We are grateful that, as you stated TfNSW “…remain committed to our purpose to make NSW a better place to live, work and visit by delivering a safe, reliable and sustainable transport network”.
It is currently the National Road Safety Week. We note that data recently presented to the TfNSW Active Transport Community of Practice (2024-06-20) documented higher rates of unsafe crossing in the City of Sydney due to dangerously long waits at signals, aligning with international evidence (Martin, A. (2006. Factors influencing pedestrian safety: a literature review (No. PPR241). Wokingham, Berks: TRL (Transport for London), Baass K G (1989). Review of European and North American practice of pedestrian signal timing. Prepared for RTAC Annual Conference Calgary, Alberta.)
50 people are killed on NSW roads and streets every year, this figure is trending up – and many of these people are killed waiting at signals or taking risks to cross streets because signal wait times are too long.
We believe releasing such signal timing data is in the public interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes which could reduce harm and assist the shift to sustainable modes.
Understanding signal timing is crucial for the public to evaluate progress toward action 7 of focus area 5.1 of the TfNSW Active Transport Strategy, and assess compliance with the mandatory Road User Space Allocation Policy. Without access to data, the public cannot assess whether outcomes are improving.
3. Factual errors and misrepresentations
| TfNSW statement in 2025-05-09 letter | Correction |
| “We also note that the last published set of ‘signals data’ from WA Main Roads, a customer of SCATS, is from October 2023. As such, it is historical and not maintained as a real-time or near real-time data set.” | This is factually incorrect. In the third paragraph of my 2025-04-16 letter I include a hyperlink, which points to a page titled “Historic Traffic Data at Signalised derived by SCATS”: https://mainroads.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=327c0f079090426c8e1e64b07972b3ee#overview. This site clearly states “Item updated: 28 Apr 2025”. Following the “Open” button on this page shows several folders of traffic data, clearly labelled from 2024-11 to 2025-04. This could not have changed between our correspondence; the Internet Archive captured the April 2025 update on April 7th – nine days before I sent my prior letter. I am unable to find a ‘signals data’ dataset dated October 2023 on https://catalogue.data.wa.gov.au/ or https://mainroads.maps.arcgis.com/. |
| “Data on traffic volumes is available for a cost-recovery fee from Transport.” | We did not request traffic volume data. This is a misrepresentation. In my prior letter I “…request that Transport for NSW make SCATS traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible..” While we would welcome such data to be made open, we understand sensitivities around the accuracy, commercial value and possibility of misinterpretation of sensor derived vehicle volumes. |
| “If you are interested in a traffic signal report, data or service, please complete the relevant form, by following the link below. You can also view the schedule of fees for specialist services provided by the Network Operations on the form page.” | The process you describe to request traffic signal data by completing the linked form states a cost no less than $200 for a single intersection (TCS site). None of the form options offer non-interpreted (raw) SCATS history file, or options for network-wide signal timing data. Your letter describes WA Main Roads as a “customer” of SCATS. It is difficult to believe that a customer agency is capable of exporting signal timing data in a machine-readable GeoParquet format under a Creative Commons license (free and open source), yet the agency that develops and maintains SCATS cannot. We find it implausible that TfNSW lacks the technical capability to release similar data. The public has already paid for the infrastructure and expertise that generates this data. The information belongs to the people of NSW. SCATS is owned by the state of NSW. |
| “As such, the optimisation algorithm and related information form part of the intellectual property at the core of the SCATS product and is considered commercially sensitive information.” | We did not request the optimisation algorithm or any information that may be considered intellectual property, or any commercially sensitive information. This is a misrepresentation. We do not consider signal cycle time or time spent on each phase commercially sensitive, as we do not request the input information used to determine such outputs. If it was, the described WA Main Roads data would be releasing commercially sensitive information and core SCATS intellectual property. Please let us know (and WA Main Roads) if this is the case. Additionally, the director of TfNSW Network Operations himself stated in the Q&A of a public AITPM talk: “…Do we have any real objection to providing that data as operators, to providing that data openly? No, I don’t think so. But exactly what the government and transport at a senior executive level wants to do, obviously that hasn’t been determined yet.” (2025-02-06) (Link to full quote) |
| “Additionally, for cybersecurity reasons, SCATS cannot provide detailed information on how the algorithm-driven optimisation messages are communicated to the physical infrastructure. That information is kept confidential to protect the safety critical systems that control the signal phases and timing in NSW intersections from cyberattacks.” | We did not request “detailed information on how the algorithm-driven optimisation messages are communicated to the physical infrastructure”, or any related internal architecture, or any technical drawings of physical infrastructure. This is a misrepresentation. In my prior letter I “…request that Transport for NSW make SCATS traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible..” We do not request information on how messages are communicated to the physical infrastructure, only the resultant cycle time and temporal allocation made for each phase as reported back to the operator. While we would welcome such data being made open, we do not request engineering diagrams of physical infrastructure installations. We do note that WA Main Roads publishes digital copies of pavement & signage engineering drawings and signal arrangement drawings for every signal, and VicRoads publishes Traffic Signal Configuration Data Sheets (“Op Sheets”). |
4. Further context of Australian precedent of releasing open signal data
WA Main Roads previously published a real-time websocket feed of signal timing. I understand that in December 2024 they were undertaking a significant upgrade of their IT infrastructure and systems. To continue to support the SCATS Open Data Feed, an upgrade and migration of all its components would be necessary. Such a solution was deemed to be time-consuming, costly, require a complete re-write of the underlying solution and result in ongoing overhead.
I proposed that WA Main Roads consider providing regular monthly exports of the previously streamed real-time signal data. This approach offers lower ongoing maintenance than a live feed while preserving the public benefits of transparency and improved planning.
By 2025-01-21, the WA Main Roads Open Data Governance Committee had decided to pursue this suggestion, initially through monthly data dumps, with the potential for automated weekly updates in future. By 2025-04-07 they had published over 8GB of GeoParquet data – an impressive 76 days later. I greatly appreciate their leadership in open data governance and technical excellence.
I look forward to your response.
Kind Regards,
Jake Coppinger
on behalf of WalkSydney
Jointly signed by
– Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney
– Sara Stace, President of Better Streets
WalkSydney is the peak body advocating for walking in the Greater Sydney Region.
WalkSydney’s vision is for walking to be the first choice for short trips around Sydney.
WalkSydney has three key asks:
- 30 km/hr urban default speed
- streets that are safe and easy to cross
- pedestrian priority over cars
WalkSydney is a member of the Better Streets coalition, an collection of hundreds of community organisations advocating for better streets in Australia
TfNSW Letter OTS25/01450 (received 2025-11-13)
(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/OTS25_01450 – SCATS traffic signal phasing data release.pdf)
Transport for NSW
Mr. Jake Coppinger
The WalkSydney Organisation
Level 4, 68 Wentworth Ave
SURRY HILLS NSW 2010
Via email [email protected]
OTS25/01450
Re: SCATS traffic signal phasing data release 9 May 2025
Dear Mr. Coppinger,
Thank you for your recent correspondence to the Secretary of Transport for NSW and for sharing your
advocacy on behalf of people walking and riding in Greater Sydney. In this instance the Secretary has
asked me to respond to you on his behalf.
Currently, Transport for NSW (Transport) does not routinely publish traffic signal phase and timing
information. Transport also does not plan to establish a scheme or arrangement for the publication of
that data for the NSW road network and signalised intersections.
The Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), which controls signal phase selection and
timing for each individual intersection, operates as a coordinated and adaptive system. This means
that each intersection has varying timing and phase selections that are based on the vehicle and
pedestrian demand, the time of day, and the minimum safety parameters of each intersection in the
NSW road network. With more than 4,500 intersections, configurations change minute by minute as
each phase is altered, extended, shortened or skipped in response to real time demands. SCATS uses
machine learning principles to update the timing and phase selections in real-time to optimise traffic
flow. Any publication of this data will be outdated by the time it is released.
The relationship between the volume, vehicle and pedestrian demand and responsive signal phase
and timing is governed by SCATS central optimisation algorithm and by any manual interventions or
configurations performed by Transport road network operators. As such, the optimisation algorithm
and related information form part of the intellectual property at the core of the SCATS product and
is considered commercially sensitive information.
Additionally, for cybersecurity reasons, SCATS cannot provide detailed information on how the
algorithm-driven optimisation messages are communicated to the physical infrastructure. That
information is kept confidential to protect the safety critical systems that control the signal phases
and timing in NSW intersections from cyberattacks.
We also note that the last published set of ‘signals data’ from WA Main Roads, a customer of SCATS,
is from October 2023. As such, it is historical and not maintained as a real-time or near real-time data
set.
Data on traffic volumes is available for a cost-recovery fee from Transport. If you are interested in a
traffic signal report, data or service, please complete the relevant form, by following the link below.
You can also view the schedule of fees for specialist services provided by the Network Operations on
the form page.
Traffic signal request form – https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/trafficsignal
We remain committed to our purpose to make NSW a better place to live, work and visit by delivering
a safe, reliable and sustainable transport network. To that end, we welcome further correspondence
and share an open invitation for The WalkSydney, Mr. Coppinger and any other interested members
to meet with our SCATS team and further understand the system and the way Transport applies its
capabilities.
If you have any further questions, please contact Roy Brown, Director Technology SCATS from our
Finance, Technology & Commercial Division at [email protected].
I hope this has been of assistance.
Sincerely,
Brenda Hoang
Deputy Secretary, Finance Technology and Commercial Division
Group Chief Financial Officer
Cc:
Roy Brown [email protected]
Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney [email protected]
Sara Stace, President of Better Streets [email protected]
OFFICIAL
231 Elizabeth St, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8202 2200
PO BOX K659 HAYMARKET NSW 1240
WalkSydney Letter 2025-04-16
(Original letter PDF: https://files.jakecoppinger.com/tfnsw-open-signal-data/Outgoing corro to TfNSW Secretary SCATS data release.pdf)
Secretary
Transport for NSW
Level 31, 320 Pitt Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Dear Mr Murray,
Re: Public Access to SCATS Traffic Signal Phasing Data
We are writing on behalf of WalkSydney to request that Transport for NSW make SCATS traffic signal phasing data publicly accessible in the interest of transparency, better planning, and inclusive transport outcomes.
As you know, the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) plays a central role in managing vehicle movements across Sydney’s road network. However, despite its scale and impact, there is limited public visibility into how signal phasing decisions are made, particularly in relation to how these choices affect people walking, riding, and accessing public transport.
In contrast, the Western Australian Government has taken a significant step forward by publishing SCATS signal phasing data online — free and accessible to all. This openness supports evidence-based advocacy, allows communities and researchers to understand trade-offs, and ensures accountability for how public infrastructure serves all users of the street network. We believe signal timing should be as public as a train or bus timetable.
We believe similar access in New South Wales would be an important step toward aligning with Government commitments to Vision Zero, Net Zero, and modal shift. 40% of people in NSW don’t have a driver licence, and more than that don’t drive, but we don’t have those stats.
Right now, the needs of people walking and riding are not meaningfully represented in the SCATS framework. Advocates and planners lack the information needed to make the case for safer, more equitable signal timing — especially for children, older adults, people with disabilities and everyone in between.
We understand from conversations with TfNSW staff that there is a historic reason for SCATS data being charged – and that was to suppress the number of requests and therefore administration costs, in an era before the Open Data Hub. We believe this is no longer valid, as it places an unfair administrative and financial cost on the public, compared to providing the data on the portal.
We therefore respectfully request that Transport for NSW:
- Provide public access to SCATS traffic signal phasing data across the network, or
- Publish a roadmap outlining how and when this data will be made available, and
- Engage with advocates and accessibility groups on opportunities to make SCATS more responsive to the needs of vulnerable and active transport users.
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further and work collaboratively to ensure our traffic signal system reflects the priorities of a modern, inclusive transport network.
Yours sincerely,
Jake Coppinger
on behalf of WalkSydney
Jointly signed by
– Tegan Mitchell, President of WalkSydney
– Sara Stace, President of Better Streets
WalkSydney is the peak body advocating for walking in the Greater Sydney Region.
WalkSydney’s vision is for walking to be the first choice for short trips around Sydney.
WalkSydney has three key asks:
- 30 km/hr urban default speed
- streets that are safe and easy to cross
- pedestrian priority over cars
WalkSydney is a member of the Better Streets coalition, an collection of hundreds of community organisations advocating for better streets in Australia
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