Highways Agency announces roads IT plan

Strategy aims to ease traffic congestion by providing better information to drivers

The Highways Agency has launched its new information strategy, detailing how technology will help to ease congestion and smooth traffic flow on major roads.

The agency, which is responsible for England’s motorways and trunk roads, says the focus of the plan is to provide better and more timely information to drivers to help make decisions on the best route to take.

‘I want everyone’s experience of using our national road network to get better,’ said minister of state for transport Stephen Ladyman.

‘We have an enormous opportunity to do this by improving the way we collect and use information, and by the way we give it back to you.’

The agency’s director of information, Denise Plumpton, says new technology is making it increasingly possible to deliver up-to-date, real-time traffic information to drivers.

‘People have satellite navigation systems that update when it finds out about roadworks and other problems. Cars are moving towards digital radios and internet radios. The car will be the technology base of the future,’ she told Computing.

‘For us, the challenge is understanding how we can work with the private sector, such as automotive designers, radio providers and mobile phone operators, to get information where the customer needs it.’

Plumpton says the aim is to provide a more joined-up set of services to help drivers.

‘We have been looking at how we can pull together a lot of initiatives the agency had been doing, that were being done as piecemeal solutions,’ she said. ‘We weren’t providing a joined up view of information or any direction on what we trying to do over the next few years.’

The agency has announced the opening of a £160m National Traffic Control Centre near the M5 in Birmingham. The centre will collect and provide information on the traffic network, monitoring 1,730 CCTV cameras and 4,450 traffic sensors.

Last year, the agency announced a £490m, 10-year project to develop a national high-speed communications network.

The National Roads Telecommunications Services 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.