MOTORISTS in New England council areas will now have access to local road data on the state's Live Traffic NSW platform.
It means closures, delays and repairs on any road will be visible from a single app and will help in times of flood and other disasters.
Until now, only state roads were included in the system, which feeds into navigation systems such as Google Maps.
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This meant information on flood or fire-affected local roads resided on separate local government platforms, causing confusion for motorists.
NSW Farmers Business, Economics and Trade Committee chair John Lowe said members had been calling for the government to adopt this sort of common-sense, practical solution.
"We are thrilled the Minister has listened to farmers and communities, because this could be a real game-changer in terms of safety," Mr Lowe said.
"When an area is in flood for example, you either had to know where to find each council's road closure updates or risk turning around and criss-crossing your way around the closure.
"Even when roadworks are occurring, this will mean farmers and people travelling in regional areas can now plan better to avoid delays.
"It will be great for local government to have access to this platform, it won't cost them anything, and it will be a big win for regional motorists."
According to the NSW Government, during natural disasters the Live Traffic NSW website and mobile app traffic spiked up to 33 times the usual daily volume, with up to 660,000 sessions in one day, demonstrating the demand for real-time traffic information in a crisis.
Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Sam Farraway said the NSW Government had created the 'OneRoad' platform to allow councils to feed their data into Live Traffic NSW, so road impacts across local and state roads were all in the one place.
There were 22 local government areas chosen to launch the platform, with a staged rollout planned to bring all remaining council areas online by 2024.
"It just goes to show that sometimes all you need is a little common-sense and the will to put it into practice to make a big difference," Mr Lowe said.
"After the past couple of years of fires and floods - not to mention a global pandemic - this is exactly the sort of good news regional communities will welcome."
The new information will be available from October with parts of the North Coast and Northern Rivers also included in the rollout.
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