The Highways Agency is to use voice-over IP (VoIP) technology across England and Wales to aid traffic management.

The organisation has awarded IT supplier Siemens a contract to install VoIP at seven regional control centres, and plans to complete the project by January 2006.

VoIP systems will integrate with CCTV cameras and central communications systems used by the agency, and will be compatible with Sepura Airwave radio terminals, used by 1,000 traffic officers.

'By deploying traffic officers we can respond to incidents faster, while freeing up the resources of the police,' said Ian Chalmers, Highways Agency technology team leader for regional control centres.

The Agency also plans to increase CCTV coverage across England and Wales' motorway network, building on its £1.9m CCTV network upgrade announced earlier this year (Computing, 17 February).

'The images from CCTV will now be coming into our new regional control centres so we can monitor and respond to incidents faster,' said Chalmers.

Earlier this month, the Agency signed an £8m, five-year deal with IT services company Computacenter to manage the command, control and communications services used by traffic officers (Computing, 14 April).