The Highways Agency has announced a £490m, 10-year project to develop a national high-speed communications network.

The National Roads Telecom-munications Services (NRTS) project will upgrade 28 existing networks, providing a single IP-based system linking 14,000 electronic road signs, emergency telephones, CCTV cameras and traffic monitoring systems to the Agency’s control centres.

The first phase of the project will install cables on parts of the M4, M3 and M62, as well as replacing and upgrading electronics in more than 150 roadside transmission stations.

NRTS replaces a number of existing deals with a single national contract, which has been awarded to the GeneSYS consortium led by US firm Fluor. Key subcontractors include Alcatel, Peek Traffic and Mott MacDonald.

Alcatel will be responsible for building and deploying a converged high-speed network alongside motorways, in a sub-contract valued at €120m (£81m).
Implementation of the network will start in 2006, with completion of the core transmission network planned for the first quarter of 2007.

Denise Plumpton, director of information at the Highways Agency, told Computing that the network will improve connections between regional control centres, motorway traffic officers and roadside devices.

It will also help future initiatives, such as real-time online CCTV images of road congestion.

‘We have a lot of copper next to roads right now, with limited resilience. This is a major step forward to move to an IP-based network with increased bandwidth and resilience,’ she said.

Working in conjunction with advanced traffic management (ATM) systems, the network will also help with traffic flows. An ATM system is being implemented on the M42 near Birmingham to allow the hard shoulder to be used as an extra lane during peak traffic times.

‘It has a very complex set of signs to advise people when they can use this, but to set those signs we need to see what’s happening on the network and how congested roads are, to see whether or not to open that lane. This all requires improved real-time communication links to do so effectively,’ said Plumpton.