The competition watchdog has given the go-ahead for Transurban to bid for a majority stake in the WestConnex toll road after it agreed to release important traffic data.

The state government is still in the process of deciding who will buy 51 per cent of the $16.8 billion motorway.

Toll giant Transurban has now agreed to release crucial traffic data – gantry data – to receive the ACCC’s tick of approval.

But they won’t release the data unless they win the bidding process.

ACCC Chairman Rod Sims tells Ross Greenwood Transurban’s possession of gantry data gave them a huge advantage and this deal will help even the playing field.

“The other bidders had equally good models, because you can get… loop data and that was available both on Transurban roads and on the rest of the network.

“You can get a lot of data. But what they do with the ganrty data is it validates the model so their confidence in their results is so much larger.

“By making that information generally available, we think that can allow much more competition in future.”

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