Our people

A third of Melbourne’s breakfast radio audience is familiar with the reassuring voice of the Department of Transport and Planning’s Brad Arnoldt, yet most wouldn’t know how his regular traffic reports are compiled and effortlessly delivered each day.

Traffic signal design engineers like Noel and David play a key role in designing intersections to operate smoothly and safely. They also set the stage for adaptable, real time signal changes to be made, if needed, to tackle congestion.

The smell of burning rubber, high adrenalin, and the thrill of F1 supercars whizzing by …. these will all be part of a day’s work for Luke Ryan at the Grand Prix on Sunday. But it’s not as you’d expect.

Meet the people at Smarter Roads who are working to keep people and goods moving across Melbourne. Purbaj is a civil engineer who used to work for an NBN delivery partner which rolled out kilometres of fibre to help Victorians stay connected to the world wide web. Now, as part of the Smarter Roads Program, he’s rolling out new live-feed CCTV cameras on our roads.

We rely on buses when train services are interrupted by major railway projects such as level crossing removals and rail duplication works. So it’s good to know there’s a team working behind the scenes to give these replacement buses more priority at traffic lights, particularly during peak periods.

This week we chat to Muhammad, one of our new Incident Response Officers, working to keep our arterial roads safe and flowing! The Incident Response Service’s (IRS) primary role is to respond to disruptions and incidents on the roads, which includes traffic accidents, vehicle breakdowns, and debris in the way. Incidents are managed effectively to reduce disruptions to the road network and to improve the safety of responders and motorists.

Meet Paul, our Senior Signal Optimisation Engineer within the Signal Services team. His team is currently conducting the biggest traffic light review in Melbourne’s history as part of our Smarter Roads Program. We had a chat to Paul about how he got into the traffic light business and Victoria’s unique way of programming the road network.

Director of Transport Operations, Emily Lodder, joined Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Ben Carroll, on Seven News recently to talk about the 728 new traffic monitoring cameras recently installed under our $340m Smarter Roads program.

Incident Response Officer, Denise Thomson, had a recent brush with fame when she joined Jacinta Parsons on ABC Melbourne radio to talk about her interesting and varied role in VicRoads Incident Response Service, in a segment known as “Odd Jobs”!

Meet Sarath, one of our Lead Specialists in the Signal Services Team. As part of the Smarter Roads program, we’re conducting the biggest traffic light review in Melbourne’s history and Sarath can tell you all about it.

This week we chatted to Cathy, one of our Congestion Surveillance and Audit Officers, about how she was able to transfer her skills into this new role, how she thrives from the challenges of the job, and the power of education and honest conversations!