E-HEALTH Living Lab, an e-Government cloud network, new energy efficient transport systems – they may seem like technologies of the future but they could be closer than we think.

Today the ACT Government announced they will enter $12 million four-year commitment with NICTA’s Canberra Research Laboratory, Australia’s information and communication technology centre of excellence,  that employs 55 full-time researchers and 52 PhD students at the research laboratory that works with government agencies and Canberra businesses to develop new technologies.

The $12million boost will consist of grants and payroll tax waivers over the four year period starting on July 1.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher said NICTA made a significant contribution to the ACT economy, with its research laboratory attracting direct Australian Government expenditure of $90 million during the period of 2003-2011.

“Over the coming months the ACT Government and NICTA will establish a number of projects that will utilise NICTA’s advanced ICT expertise which can add value to the services we deliver,” Gallagher said.

“For example, we look forward to seeing NICTA progress its e-Health Living Lab concept here in Canberra and draw in the research and clinical expertise across our universities and hospital system.

“NICTA is also developing advanced technology to make transport systems more efficient with the potential to save millions of dollars in direct costs and also reduce carbon emissions which if applied to local transport would be of great benefit to our community.”

Canberra Research Laboratory principal researcher for managing complexity, Dr Philip Kilby is heading the research into “an energy efficient, more time efficient and more cost efficient” public transport system.

“My area of research is finding optimal or very good routes for vehicles,” Dr Kilby said.

“We’ve applied that to fast moving consumer goods. Finding routes for daily deliveries, 24,000 customers across Australia. For us it doesn’t matter whether the package is a bottle of milk or the package might have two legs .

“So we are looking to how we can apply those methods to improve public transport.”

He said the project is based on the concept of a fleet of taxis or mini-buses that respond to demand, instead of traditional buses that run routes within suburbs.

“So you only have as many vehicles on the road as you absolutely need, rather than having empty buses running around ‘just in case’,” he said.

“There are a few systems like this in the world, mostly in the United States. Asia has a lot as well but they are more the privately run and much more chaotic and adhoc. We are hoping we have the technology base here to make it more stable.”

He said they are currently in the process of finding out how the system might work in Canberra using data such as the data collected from the “MyWay” system.

“The new MyWay card has given us a lot of data to work out what the demand might be,” he said.

“I am very excited about the opportunity to do work on this project, something I’ve been thinking about for years and years and it’s really only now that the technology allows us to actually do it.”