The Burnley Tunnel is much steeper and deeper than people realise. When going through the tunnel, drivers are actually driving down to about 65 metres below the Yarra River, then back up again as they exit.

Because of this, drivers tend to slow down on the uphill, which was leading to congestion and could create backlogs of traffic in the tunnel.

By giving the Burnley Tunnel a major makeover, we’re helping drivers maintain consistent speeds. The Australian-first pacemaker lights have also transformed the tunnel into a one-of-a-kind Australian driving experience.

We’ve installed and switched on the state-of-the-art pacemaker lighting to act as visual cues for drivers, guiding them in maintaining a consistent speed. We’ve also transformed the tunnel’s overall lighting, installing colourful, more energy efficient LEDs.

When testing these changes in a virtual reality trial, we found they improved the experience for drivers by 40%, with increases in line of sight, improved driver comfort and consistency of speed at the slope.

There’s nothing more important to us than safety – it’s been at the heart of our planning and design of these lights and we wouldn’t implement anything that didn’t meet Australia’s stringent road safety standards.

A key part of the design of these lights was ensuring they prevent any impacts to drivers with light sensitivities. We’ve designed the lighting so it doesn’t have the ‘flickering effect’ that we know triggers epilepsy conditions, and have prevented the risk through the detailed design process.

Not only do the lights meet road safety standards, we’ve also carried out road safety audits examining these exact conditions – so we’re confident we’ve designed a system that won’t impact light-sensitive drivers. 

It’s important to note we’re not talking about flickering or strobing lights here – the pacemaker lights will simply move at the speed limit acting as a reminder in your peripheral vision to maintain a consistent speed. We will continue to monitor the tunnel closely as drivers get used to the new lighting.

The pacemaker lighting will operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week unless there are changed conditions in the tunnel such as an incident or maintenance works.

Whether the pacemaker lights are on or off, drivers should continue their normal drive and follow the displayed speed limit shown on the variable speed signs throughout the tunnel.

Transurban operates some of the safest and most technologically advanced roads in the world. We’re experts and operating and maintaining state-of-the-art toll roads and this includes managing innovative technology such as pacemaker lighting.

As part of this project’s development, Transurban rolled out an Australian-first virtual reality trial that tested whether technology changes, including pacemaker lights, could help drivers maintain a consistent speed in the Burnley Tunnel. This trial revealed these changes were likely to make a difference.

In addition to significant research and data from pacemaker lighting systems currently operating in Japan – a world leader of innovation and road safety – we used the customer-driven insights from our own research to inform the both the design of the pacemaker lighting system and the operating system we’ll use to control it.