Peter Jacka was the Guest Speaker at the club’s meeting on 30 July2025. Peter is a Civil Engineer/Traffic Engineer. While working as a Civil Engineer for a Local Authority in New Zealand he made a remark to his then boss about a traffic engineering issue whereupon he was appointed as the council’s traffic engineer – a “one way street” his boss called it. He became involved with computerized traffic management systems and found himself installing the SCATS system in cities around the world; SCATS stands for Sydney Co-ordinated Adaptive Traffic System. All traffic signals in the city of installation are connected to the central computer which adapts signal timing to suit traffic conditions through measurement by sensors. The system also reports failed traffic signals and stores traffic volumes. All traffic signals are traffic actuated by loop detectors cut into the road. Many signals in local sequences will be linked to minimise delays. There is now experimentation with video sensors. Peter gave his impressions of Perth’s new SMART freeway and its ramp metering. He has concluded that this is not always as straightforward as it seems and there can be unforeseen results depending on the level of congestion on the freeway itself. This becomes more problematic on the final approaches to the city resulting in congestion on the freeway on-ramps. There is now evidence that some drivers are heading in the other direction to find a location where they have outrun the congestion and then enter the freeway there. People will always find a way to get around the best-intentioned measures that have been put in place.