atkins investigates what highways england really...

The UK’s only ITS and Advanced Traffic Management magazineVolume 3 Number 2

ATKINS INVESTIGATES WHAT HIGHWAYS ENGLAND REALLY MEANS

THE BIG INTERVIEWNick Simmons on being at the cutting edge and public vs private

CONNECTED VEHICLESCyber security warning and big data = too much data?

MULTI-MODAL INTEGRATIONCity hubs, safer cycling and working with trains and buses

ROADSIDE INFRASTRUCTUREForever Open Road, cleverer lights and simpler tunnel monitoring

CALL 01629 580 570 // VISIT WWW.M-VIS.CO.UK

FAST, FLEXIBLE,INTEGRATED ITSAs the UK expert in temporary Intelligent Transport System (ITS) Solutions,

http://www.m-vis.co.uk

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 2 3

FROM THE EDITOR

+ Smart thinking

ere you at Traffex? If you were you’d know it was a particularly interesting event for ITS. And here’s why.

When I first went to Traffex in the early 2000s I was looking for traveller information for the supplier I was working for, and I was disappointed to see a host of traffic lights, barriers, signs and other “old” technology. I discovered that my company was a leader in

the industry and, from memory, I think we ended up exhibiting there two years later.How different that younger me would have found the latest Traffex. I haven’t done a full analysis, but

my colleague Alec (the editor of Highways Magazine) and I agreed that the latest Traffex provided many more story leads for me than him. ITS was now the dominant feature in the industry.

I was impressed. There was so much exciting innovation in the field of Intelligent Transport. But then I left for the evening….

It was Wednesday and I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a friend about 20 miles away, who happened to work right beside the NEC (I stay in enough identikit corporate hotels in my life to rejoice when I can avoid one when I’m away). We left the venue at around 5.40pm for the 20–30-minute drive home.

We were still trying to get on the M42, less than a mile away as the crow flies, an hour and 20 minutes later. The problem appeared to be on the roundabout above the motorway, and not the motorway itself, although I can’t tell you for certain for reasons I’ll come to in a moment. I checked my connected navigation device which didn’t tell me about the jam. Despite a camera looking straight at us, I could find no report of a problem on the web, and no mention at all on the radio. People I’ve spoken to say there was nothing mentioned on the VMS. I haven’t obviously checked every outlet so can’t say whether anyone did have the details, but I can say from a user’s point of view that I was totally let down by the information providers.

In the end we ended up getting around the problem by going three times further, the other way around the Birmingham Box but made it home. If only we’d know about the clockwise problems on the network earlier, we’d have saved an hour of frustration.

So the difference between inside the NEC and outside in the real world couldn’t have been greater. And I wonder what the people who suffered the pain with me in the jam would have made of our metaphorical back slapping indoors. It was an example of where we as an industry were letting down our customers.

One thing we can do easily is deliver information to our customers in a way they can use. That’s why I’m delighted to welcome our new columnist Chris Moore, a colleague from a million years ago when I worked in radio, who has become a pioneer and leading expert in Social Media. He has a few challenging opinions for us which I think we should take note of.

I’m also fascinated to see different views on Highways England delivered in the Atkins investigation, pleased to show we’re working on multi-modal integration, how ITS is vital for roadside infrastructure and also to read some ideas and case studies on connected vehicles. Although, of course, connected vehicles are all very well, but we’ll have to make sure handle the data we receive properly and make sure the vehicles and their occupants receive the right, accurate information!

W

The editor writes about why, despite the amazing advances in ITS,

the public may need persuasion that anything’s being done!

Paul Hutton

st

Editorial AdvisorPaul Hutton ([email protected])

Commercial ManagerTom Gardner ([email protected])

Recruitment & ProductionCarole Epps ([email protected])

Publisher/Managing DirectorNeil Levett MIHE MIAT MAIRSO

Editorial & SalesTel: 01732 459683

Design and layoutEd Miller ([email protected])

Subscriptions and CirculationDaniel Verrells, Beeline Data ServicesTel: 01342 314812

Email: [email protected]

SMART Highways is published quarterly by

Alad Ltd, 6 Wealden Close, Bradbourne Vale

Road, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3QQ

© 2015 Alad Ltd Ltd. All rights reserved.The views and opinions of the authors are

not necessarily those of Alad Ltd. Repro-

duction (in whole or in part) of any text,

photograph or illustration contained in this

publication without the written permission

of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

Printed in the UK by Buxton PressPalace Road, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6AE

Alad Ltd6 Wealden Place,

Bradbourne Vale Road,

Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 3QQ, UK

www.aladltd.co.uk

smartHIGHWAYSVol 3 No 2

Supported by ITS UK

smartHIGHWAYS EDITORIAL BOARD

Nabil Abou-Rahme Director, Transport Technology, Mott MacDonald

Denis Naberezhnykh, Head of Low Carbon Vehicles and ITS Technology at TRL

Sharon Kindleysides, Managing Director, Kapsch UK and Chairman ITS (UK)

Lee Woodcock, Technology Director, Atkins Highways and Transportation

t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

Alad Ltd is a member of the Professional Publishers Association

OUR EVENTS

www.hmea.co.uk www.sib.uk.net

mailto:[email protected]





http://www.aladltd.co.uk

http://www.smarthighways.net

http://www.hmea.co.uk

http://www.sib.uk.net


CONTENTS

+ Volume 3 Number 2

06 TOP ITS STORIESDartCharge under fire, cycle detection tests under way in London and a former minister joins Adaptive Modules board

NEWS REVIEW

st

10 BIG INTERVIEWNick Simmons on his days at AA Roadwatch, new technology at ITIS and the

roles of the public and private sectors

22 THE ATKINS INVESTIGATIONWhat will Highways England actually do? Lee Woodcock of Atkins talks to

the boss, the regulator, a client and former politician

26 SMOOTH TRANSITIONThe City Hub project explained

30 QUEUE NO MOREManaging wait times at ports and borders

32 A LIFETIME WITH CUSTOMERS IN TRANSPORTNick Illsley on multi-modal challenges and opportunities

34 GIS A SAFER CYCLE RIDEHow intelligent mapping’s helped make our roads safer

36 FOREVER AND EVER – A ROADTRL explain their Forever Open Road initiative

40 PUT IN A SICKYSICK’s multi-use tunnel monitor explained

43 SAVING LIVES & COSTSRitherdon’s passive safety cabinet examined

44 CORNWALL IN CONTROLWDM’s comprehensive asset management solution

46 SHUTTING THE CYBER DOORNick Hewitson on the cyber dangers to connected vehicles

50 SO WHATEVER HAPPENED TO CONNECTED VEHICLES?Andy Graham discusses the huge amount of data we’ll be having

to handle

56 ITS UK NEWSA new chairman, awards winners and more on who transport is really for

FEATURES

52 54

EVENTS

30 CITY HUBS: SMOOTH TRANSITION

10 BIG INTERVIEW

36 OPEN ROAD

46 CYBER SECURITY

14 JENNIE MARTIN16 STEPHEN LADYMAN17 DAVID BONN18 MARK PLEYDELL20 CHRIS MOORE

COLUMNISTS


28 CYCLING SAFETY


smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 2

NEWS REVIEW

esearch by the AA suggests that the M25’s Dartford Crossing tolling

scheme has double-charged some drivers.

The motoring organisation reports that a slew of complaints has emerged from motorists who tried to pay the Dart Charge online, encountering system

had been charged twice to use the crossing. It adds that what

could have been dismissed as an irritating

but not unexpected teething problem, which should have been quickly resolved, has turned into a potential “Achilles heel”. The AA says that, although the vast majority of drivers have a trouble-free experience with Dart Charge small technicalities have escalated and frustrated customers exposed shortfalls in service standards which could give the scheme a bad name.

It highlights a number of Twitter and Facebook posts complaining about customer service.

The Dart Charge system uses automatic number plate

recognition or tags to

identify vehicles with the charge being paid either on account or within a day of the crossing by, among other things, telephone, online or at certain retailers.

Highways England has been quoted as saying, “The vast majority of the 100,000 chargeable crossings at Dartford made each day are processed accurately and smoothly. Given the scale of transactions from time to time errors will be made for which we apologise unreservedly.”

Meanwhile the safety system to identify vehicles which may be a safety risk is scheduled to go live around the time you receive this issue of Smart Highways.

The system, due to be launched on the weekend

of 13-14 June, will automatically work out which vehicles need to

be stopped and either turned around or which need to be escorted

through the tunnel. These include over-height lorries

and those with dangerous loads.Despite the charging of

vehicles being automatic since last November, those travelling north through the tunnels have still had to slow at barriers because this was the only way that they could be checked for safety reasons. Now a new automated system will mean it

Dart Charge project director Nigel Gray said: “Since Dart Charge launched in November it

journeys at the Dartford Crossing. This new safety system is vital for the safe operation of the tunnels and will enable us to remove the old payment barriers for good.

change to the road layout, so I advise drivers to take extra care and pay extra attention to all signs and signals, especially for

crossing following the change.”Final road layout changes will

be complete later this summer.

R

06

DartCharge system under fi re from the AA


The Smart Highways website is now live with frequent updates on the biggest stories affecting ITS in the UK. You can read about product launches, personnel changes and policy announcements, plus research and international matters of importance. And make sure you’re signed up for our weekly email 7 Days in ITS where we summarise the main stories into one place for you. It arrives every Monday morning giving you a professional briefi ng to start your working week. Here are some of the most-clicked stories over the past few weeks:



The organisers

of this year’s

ITS WORLD

CONGRESS IN

BORDEAUX have

released the

preliminary programme. The sessions

include, among many, discussions

and presentations on technology,

deployment, multi-modality, plus

urban trends, sustainable mobility,

automated roads and “big data”.

Among the high-profi le visitors

are the European Commissioner

for Mobility and Transport, and the

President of ASFA France. There’ll

be technology summits on “The

Plug and Play City” and Connected

and Automated Driving, while social

events include the Gala Dinner in a

vineyard. Early bird registration is

available until 10th July.

M2M WIRELESS SOLUTIONS COMPANY

ADAPTIVE MODULES have announced

that Sir Richard Needham has joined

the board. The former Minister of

Trade and Under-Secretary of State

of Northern Ireland joins to assist

in its plans to aid growth into new

markets with its wireless solutions

and custom products. Sir Richard was

a director of Dyson for more than 16

years, and the company says it is

“delighted” to have him on board and

take advantage of his expertise in

manufacturing and technology

which, it says, “will prove to be a

valuable asset to aid… driving the

business forward.”

ENGINEERS AT GLYNDWR UNIVERSITY

in Wrexham believe that driverless

cars have the potential to be used

most effectively on the country’s

steep, narrow, slow and sinuous

roads. They say driverless cars could

provide the answer to poor public

transport links in rural areas of

Wales and the nation’s country roads

are an ideal place to pioneer their

use. The academics have submitted

their views on the subject to the

Welsh Government to help inform its

Transport Strategy for Wales.

NEWS REVIEW

system designed and installed

Warrington Borough Council to keep vehicles well away from a potential bottleneck that has

in the past.As one of a series of measures

looked at to ease congestion

the road by a railway bridge, the

way of warning drivers in advance of approaching trouble while still

alternative route.Swarco used its proven

technology to design a bespoke system that had previously been used to warn of high winds on

adapted the concept to a new

At the heart of the solution

is a sophisticated central control system complemented by four UTMC-compliant low energy/high visibility LED signs. A pressure sensor installed in a manhole cover by the bridge detects when the water has risen above a certain level. This sensor interfaces with a UTMC-compliant cabinet, and the software within the control

signs to be activated.

Swarco flood warning technology turns the tide in Warrington

NEWS in brief

TomTom has launched a Portable Navigation Device specifically aimed at the HGV market.

The TomTom TRUCKER 6000 promises to ensure that drivers are on the right road by customising routes for the user’s specific vehicle type, size, weight, cargo and speed.

The unit also features real-time traffic information and speed camera information.

Corinne Vigreux, co-founder and managing director, TomTom Consumer said, “One of the most important things is for truckers

to be able to complete deliveries on time. That’s why we designed the TomTom TRUCKER with truck-specific routing, and world-class TomTom Traffic information, to enable them to be as efficient as possible with the limited time they are allowed to drive.

It’s all part of our mission to get people to where they want to be, faster.”

It is available across Europe.


TomTom launches lorry-specifi c satnav



NEWS REVIEW

mart parking, including P2P (peer-to-peer) parking, digital and mobile

payments and real-time parking is being predicted to lead to huge opportunities for cities and to boost parking operations to reach $43 billion by 2025.

Frost & Sullivan research says the parking industry in Europe and North America is rapidly innovating towards Smart technology. It says that, in addition to adopting high-end automation solutions and software for parking reservations and payments, its becoming increasingly integrated with

other mobility solutions and getting ready to use adapted technologies from the

communications and IT industry.Migration to intelligent

parking systems, rapid progression of wireless technologies, 4G and big data analytics, plus evolution of contactless near-field communication and other payment methodologies will be some of the trends pervading the market.

The research, “Strategic Analysis of Smart Parking Market in Europe and North America” suggests that the market earned revenues of $7 billion in 2014 but this will accelerate to $43.1 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9 percent.

08

Double-digit growth for smart-parking industry predicted

Transport for London has released details of hundreds of projects which it’s undertaking as part of its Roads Modernisation Plan.

The projects aim to transform junctions, bridges, tunnels and public spaces. In some cases where plans are in the early stage of development, the dates are provisional and could change.

TfL says its approach is underpinned by enhancements to traffic light technology and systems that will increase its ability to dynamically manage London’s roads. It adds that it will actively manage traffic flows away from and around locations where construction is taking place or space has been reallocated.

Transport for London says it aims to build a world-leading intelligent transport system through projects designed to radically improve living and travelling conditions through safer, greener and more attractive streets and town centres, as well as safer conditions for cyclists and pedestrians.

ITS at the heart of TfL’s of £4bnroad modernisation plan

signals (PCaTS) has been unveiled by Siemens.

signals informs pedestrians how long they have to cross the road after the far-side green man signal has gone out. By providing a visible countdown of the time remaining before the appearance of the red man, PCaTS is intended to give pedestrians a better understanding of the time available to complete crossing, reducing anxiety once the green man is no longer displayed. Because PCaTS shows exactly how much time is left to cross, pedestrians are less likely to panic or stop in the middle of the road.

Head of product management Keith Manston said: “The visual appearance is enhanced by the

masked’ to minimise sun phantom

further enhance the sun phantom performance if required.”

Once installed, the Siemens PCaTS unit does not require any

detects the blackout period after two learning cycles of the signals. Timing synchronisation with the blackout period is achieved by the use of direct connections to the red and green signal feeds via totally isolated input circuits, which are designed to ensure they have no impact on controller lamp or safety monitoring. These inputs are also used to sense the dim/bright state of the signals and the PCaTS unit will automatically dim when the associated pedestrian signals dim.


S

Pedestrian countdown system unveiled by Siemens

Ericsson has demonstrated its innovative connected bus stop at the UITP Milan congress, the world’s biggest public transport event.

It incorporates 3G, LTE or

the company says will support

such as real-time bus movement,s interactive maps, local news and tourist information. It will also

provide public transport operators with an additional source of revenue as it can be leased to telecom operators as a means of densifying their networks.

The company says this is necessary because, in dense urban environments such as shopping, business,

districts, capacity is often stretched to the limit and many

networks can’t consistently deliver high downlink speeds. It says the connected bus stop alleviates this problem by creating a separate small cell access network that is integrated with telecom operators’ transmission networks. Ericsson provides the technology and associated services in a partnership with transport operators and local telecom network operators.

Introducing the Connected Bus Stop



NEWS REVIEW

A new automated temporary road maintenance solution has

commercial application. Safelane combines modular electronic perimeters and VMS, to help minimise the number of work zone incursions and also safely manage those that do take place, while reducing the number of personnel deployed in dangerous perimeter guarding duties.

It was launched last autumn by temporary ITS solutions creator, MVIS in partnership with Highways Resource Solutions.

Chevron used Safelane during its management of a full carriageway closure on a bridge replacement project on the M56 in Cheshire, which had closures near Manchester Airport

six while a pre-assembled bridge was lifted into place across the motorway.

MVIS’s VMS were deployed at all four closure points, with live streaming CCTV mounted on the

same platforms. The VMS were surrounded by HRS’s Intellicone intelligent cone barriers and contactless sensors to detect breaches. VMS messages in advance of the work zone warned road users of the closure

and CCTV surveillance. During the weekend, there was only one work zone breach, and when it was, the Intellicone sensors detected the incursion, automatically wirelessly triggering a VMS message to alert the driver of their error, so encouraging them to stop before they reached the area in which work zone personnel were located.

Chevron’s area manager, John Walls said: “While improving the safety of our workers, we saved four men and four vehicles per shift.

“On our last shut down, we used six men and six vehicles per shift but, with the new kit in place, this was reduced to two of each per shift and we covered all closure points.”

‘Very successful’ fi rst commercialsafelane application undertaken


Cycle detection trial under way in LondonTransport for London has begun trials of new technology to detect the volumes of cyclists at traffic signals.

The trials are taking place along Cable Street on Cycle Superhighway 3 and detect the numbers of cyclists along a route as they head towards a signalised junction. It’s expected that they will ultimately enable traffic signal timings to adjust in real time to cater for high numbers of cyclists at key junctions during peak times.

Two types of new technology are being trialled, one radar based and one thermal based which detects the heat profile of riders as they enter the detection zone. Following the trials of the technology, TfL will carry out further trials along the cycle superhighway network.

Subject to those trials, they

say they will look to expand the use of the technology as well as integrating it into London’s SCOOT system.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “Once again London leads the way as we host world-first trials of technology that has the potential to bring significant benefits to cyclists. With record numbers taking to two wheels we are doing everything we can to make our roads more inviting

places to be. This is another great example of how TfL can harness the power of innovation to help make it easier for everyone to get around our city.”

Garrett Emmerson, Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport at TfL, said: “These hugely innovative trials are another major step forward to create roads designed for all types of road users. By having traffic signals that are able to detect

when there are high numbers of cyclists waiting at junctions, we can ensure they are given adequate time and safe passage through the junction, balancing the needs of everyone.”

British Cycling’s Campaigns Manager, Martin Key (pictured),

said: “It is great to see that low-level traffic lights can now be installed more widely across London.

They have been used successfully across

Europe and make it easier for cyclists to know when it is safe for them to ride through the junction. Transport for London is again leading the way and these lights, plus other cycle friendly measures, should be available to use not only in the capital but across the whole country over the next couple of years.”



BIG INTERVIEW

+ Nick Simmons

So Nick, if things had been different we could be sitting here like Smashy and Nicey discussing the

radio industry, yet here we are as, in some people’s eyes at least, Intelligent Transport Systems experts. So, in your case, how did it happen?

QI think it was about being in the right place at the right time rather than having a well thought out plan. When I joined the AA as a traffic reporter, the UK commercial radio industry was in its infancy. The AA wanted to position itself as a leading provider of traffic information and so the operation took on a life of it’s own and

grew quickly and in parallel with the growth in local radio including BBC.

In those early days Roadwatch was a very journalistic function, with hardly any technology. Scripts were handwritten until we acquired an early BBC Micro computer. There was no one single reliable source of data, so AA Roadwatch was a bit like

Nick Simmons and I fi rst met when he was a young radio presenter and I was an aspiring one, running my university station. He was presenting a Children in Need show and I volunteered to answer the phones. Our paths have crossed on and off ever since – but not on the radio! Nick rose to run not one but two radio travel news services – AA Roadwatch and then Traffi clink/INRIX Media and in the middle was one of the founding managers at ITIS. He’s recently departed INRIX so I caught up with him to fi nd out more about his thoughts on 25 years in the business, and where he thinks it’s going.

10

Nick Simmons was once described by Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright as the “godfather of traffi c news”

Wireless communicator

“ I made a choice that ITS would be the main career whilst radio was something I would try and do alongside… I did freelance work… doing the traffi c on BBC Radio 2 ”


INTERVIEW BY PAUL HUTTON


a newsroom, sourcing information from as many different places as possible in order to build a complete and hopefully accurate picture of what was happening. It was far from being an exact science and we have come such a long way in terms of the underlying availability and accuracy of traffic information. I remember making my regular round of check calls to the police desperately trying to cajole the slightest snippet of information from them – the whole process relied hugely on people, building a trusted and good working relationship and overcoming the culture of sharing as little as possible with all things “media” apart from a few exceptions where we worked enlightened individuals and forces.

In those early days people would cheerfully tell me that if they heard a jam reported on the radio they probably would not bother with an alternative route, pretty confident that by the time any delay had made it onto the airwaves then it would, in reality, have long been cleared! And often they were right. I regularly found myself leaving the AA studios in Stanmore at the end of a shift only to encounter bumper-to-bumper traffic on the M25 that had come as a complete and unwelcome surprise! Today, one of the really satisfying things about delivering travel information is that it is basically correct, there is so much more technology to underpin the quality of the content although it took a while for drivers to notice the change and be more confident in what they were being told. Anyway, by luck rather than by design, I managed to combine a career on the radio with delivering traffic!

Q Yeah, when people asked me why I didn’t stick with radio, I

guess my answer is that while my heart was in sitting in a room talking to myself in between records, the radio industry was changing and maybe becoming a bit less fun, while there was a lot of fast-moving innovation in ITS. Did you feel the same? Yes, and I think around the time that presenters were no longer allowed to

choose the music that they played then radio stopped being quite so much fun. So I made a choice that ITS would be the main career whilst radio was something I would try and do alongside, and I was fortunate because right up until about 2 years ago I still did freelance work on the radio. In fact I think one of the last things was covering for Lynn Bowles doing the traffic on BBC Radio 2. But you are right, ITS did seem to be moving forward very quickly and looked like an exciting place to be, and even back then clever people were coming up with exciting ways to capture and deliver better quality traffic information in innovative and high tech ways although in reality it has taken a quite a while to actually deliver on some of those early ideas and concepts!

Q You were instrumental in making AA Roadwatch a major

brand on the radio, weren’t you?I was certainly part of a team that created something that grew and felt special! The AA was a great place to work, at the time it was very much a club as opposed to being a business and was run for the benefit of its members sitting somewhere between the public and

private sector. There were some very supportive and farsighted people in the senior management team who really championed the growth of Roadwatch. And I worked with

lots of talented people, many just starting out on their careers but

some of whom would go on to be household names like Nick Moran, Fiona Phillips (left) and many more.

Q So what made you, for a while at least, step back

from day-to-day work with radio and switch to ITIS?I stayed at the AA for more than 10 years, which was never the plan! And during that period inevitably I suppose I increasingly seemed to spend less time in front of a microphone and more in meetings getting more involved in the next generation of traffic based products, like premium rate telephone lines and RDS TMC. The business was growing and my job was constantly changing, I was never tempted away because none of the alternatives were on the same scale or anything like as exciting! But then the dot com or information technology bubble of the late 1990s came along and so did the opportunity to join ITIS. It just felt like the right time to move on from

11

BIG INTERVIEW

+ Nick Simmons

A Volvo RTI navigation unit with TMC

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 2 t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net



BIG INTERVIEW

+ Nick Simmons

12

quite a large organisation whose core business was not ITS, to a start-up where it absolutely was, although I remember at the time it seemed like a big and frightening decision to make!

Q Back in the day, I seem to remember Floating Vehicle Data

was a bit hit-and-miss in its quality,

days made it the reliable data source we have today…Do you know, even in the very early days of FVD the quality was actually pretty good and certainly much better than I’d expected – the issue was always expanding coverage and growing the fleet away from the strategic road network. We also needed to manage expectations and be realistic about what exactly the data could and could not deliver, mindful too that there is no such thing ever as the perfect dataset. It was so exciting to have this consistent source of data that by default followed pretty much wherever the severest traffic congestion occurred. And capturing it from the vehicle rather than

infrastructure at the roadside for just about the first-time made good sense and had a pioneering feel about it too. And we knew that as technology improved the data could only get better and cheaper to produce. It was a really exciting time and I remember how surprised various network operators were when we showed them our demo system monitoring all their roads in real time. And of course the historic FVD data proved to be really interesting as well, working with the DfT back in 2004 and using the data for congestion monitoring was certainly a key milestone in the growth of ITIS.

Q When ITIS bought my old

sent in to run it because of your previous experience. Is that something you wanted to do or did you get it by default, because you were the only person who knew that business? Well, I was really enjoying my business development role at ITIS, particularly being involved at the very early stages of relationships and products. It was also a pleasant change not to be managing lots of people, which can so often be a distraction from the actual job that you are supposed to be doing particularly when they include the high maintenance creative types that you often encounter in the media.

But when ITIS acquired Trafficlink it was fairly obvious that I would get involved with that business. I suppose I’d had a break from supplying content to media for around 10 years so although the core business was

pretty recognisable plenty had changed too. I actually enjoyed getting involved again much more than I expected. As I have already mentioned, perhaps the biggest change

over my career has been the considerable improvement in the

accuracy of the content. This time

around there was more of a focus on working with customers to develop the service as opposed to being on the back foot and explaining why a massive queue had not been reported!

I did combine the two roles for a while and actually one of the most enjoyable things about working at ITIS was being part of a team where not everyone had a traffic or media background so we tended to looked at things with a fresh perspective and our best decisions were often made as a result of a combination of questioning received wisdom but from a reasonably informed perspective.

Q How important was it for the overall ITIS offering that you

had the journalistic data set that

Very! Although I think that when the team at ITIS first created FVD the original thought was that people would be quite happy to go wherever their navigation system directed them - but it turned out that actually there was an appetite for as much supplementary data as possible and not just the effect but the cause too. It was really helpful to know if a delay was caused for example by a broken down truck that would take three hours to remove or late running roadwork that would be quickly cleared. This helped drivers make much better informed decisions. So adding journalistic or cause data to the FVD effect data really helped provide the complete picture

Q We worked together on

contract for the Highways Agency. In hindsight, should the Government have been providing a radio service?That’s quite a difficult question to answer and part of me really can see both sides. The private sector tried and failed on a couple of occasions to deliver Traffic Radio type services and these have been run very successfully by the public sector elsewhere in the world. ITIS had operated our own digital radio station in London – Travel Now, but the much slower than anticipated growth in DAB and in particularly the long wait for digital radios to become fitted in volume


“ Capturing it from the vehicle rather than infrastructure at the roadside for just about the fi rst-time made good sense and had a pioneering feel about it too ”

Nick was involved in delivering the fi rst British RDS TMC service, using ITIS fl oating vehicle data


BIG INTERVIEW

+ Nick Simmons

“ There is very defi nitely a role, in my opinion for government to act as a catalyst and help kick start services that the private sector can then take over ”


in cars made that commercially unviable.

In the case of Traffic Radio, part of me welcomed the HA’s involvement and of course the revenue associated with the contract to help deliver the service, but another part of me questioned the timing and the large sums of money required to create and support the DAB infrastructure at a time when the private sector wasn’t, although the service itself was actually good value and as you know very popular with the admittedly small but loyal and growing audience it built up.

Throughout my career the question of where the line should be drawn between the public and private sector has never been clearly answered. I guess it depends what side of the argument you are at any one time.

There is very definitely a role, in my opinion for government to act as a catalyst and help kick start services that the private sector can then take over. Today’s RDS TMC service is an example of something that would have been much more difficult to implement without support and even encouragement from government.

Q Transport Direct has gone too – is this showing that it’s up to

the private sector to deliver the services to the travelling public? I thought Transport Direct was a great service and I am sorry to see that it has gone, it was a good example of the government coming up with something that worked really well and at a level of functionality that the private sector probably wouldn’t choose to deliver at the time but then being unable or unwilling, perhaps even embarrassed, to be seen actually promoting and telling people that it existed! And that was a problem with Travel Radio too, examples of a couple of great initiatives but awareness amongst the public was always very low. However,

the broader point is that yes, there are increasingly other places where most of this content can now be accessed, the recently revamped BBC travel site is a really good example and still comes form public sector with extremely comprehensive data but also of course Google and apps like Citymapper are active in this space. The challenge as ever is services that operate consistently and everywhere. I think that there is a gap in the market for the ultimate travel app but that is another story.

Q And then along came INRIX to buy ITIS and they inherited a

media company. What changes did that bring?Well it brought the opportunity to think globally about how old and new media consume traffic information, how that might be monetised and what changes might occur in the future. One thing it showed me was that traffic and particularly how traditional and new media consumes traffic information is instantly recognisable wherever you are in the world, and a radio or TV traffic reporter in China operates in much the same as one in America or the UK. The real question was whether to disrupt some of the existing models, ultimately it is a question of when not if and my predication is that there will be some big changes in this

landscape over the next two or three years.

Q What’s next for you, will you stick with ITS and traveller

information, or are you looking for challenges elsewhere?Well having been around the ITS sector for more than 25 years now, I don’t want to move away entirely, especially as some of the concepts we envisaged at the outset are really only just becoming a reality. But it is also refreshing to experience other sectors too. I am working with a couple of start-ups, one of which is in the ITS space, the other in a different sector altogether and I am really enjoying being back in that early stage environment.

But to go back to where this interview started, media and ITS have both come a long way in 25 years and whilst the fundamentals remain the same I do think technology and social media in particular offer some really interesting opportunities to create and deliver content in disruptive and innovative ways to the real benefit of the end user so maybe there is one more opportunity to combine the two?

Q So will we hear you on the radio again? Maybe you and I could

co present on North Norfolk Digital or something?[smiles] I’m not sure that’s the best use of our time…

NICK SIMMONS is working on a

variety of business

opportunities

[email protected]


“ Throughout my career the question of where the line should be drawn between the public and private sector has never been clearly answered ”

The Citymapper app – can the private sector deliver consistently and everywhere to replace the



THE VIEW

+ ITS UK


nless you have been living under a stone, you will have noticed that enormous general excitement about autonomous

vehicles has replaced measured professional interest in connected vehicles. It is very welcome to see UK mainstream media take a positive interest in any aspect of ITS, as opposed to no interest or an interest using the “persecuting innocent (albeit law breaking) motorists” template.

All the same, at the April meeting of ITS (UK)’s Connected Vehicle Interest Group, this switch in emphasis was debated and some interesting insights were offered by a room full of both autonomous and connected vehicles experts.

Connected systems such as eCall and vehicle platooning were receiving some wider interest but that seems in the past now. Connected vehicles require public funding in the form of infrastructure provision, and strong political leadership since the actors are numerous – all the disparate highways authorities as well as all the vehicle manufacturers – but this was never forthcoming in the way that political support for autonomous vehicles now is. There is a trend now of connected vehicles being equated merely with infotainment and this severely undersells the potential benefits of these technologies.

Why has this happened, is it a bad thing, and if so what can be done to get things back on track?

It could be that the culprits are the OEMs, who buy their electronic systems from specialist suppliers and concentrate on engineering and marketing the vehicles. It is telling that TESLA and Google are doing very well in this area but neither is a traditional established automotive OEM.

It is also the norm for people not only to not know what is actually in their vehicles, but to not actually wish to know. Vehicle buyers are only interested in performance and cost, not the hows and whys. Added to this, manufacturers do not particularly want to inform their customers about technical detail since the private car market is so competitive and under such heavy media scrutiny.

However Ford now actively publicise their self-parking

systems (pictured) and speed limit sign reading software, clearly believing that informing

customers about electronic systems will help, not hinder, sales. In addition, there is a real possibility that connectivity for cars will be realised via portable devices such as smartphones, not via integrated marque-specific systems.

We need to communicate in language which non-practitioners can

understand and find interesting. This means remembering that consumers are only

interested in what connected vehicles will do for them, not in how.

Similarly, politicians need to know what the outcomes will be of any action they might take, but they also need to understand the need for leadership to overcome the problems of the fragmented set of actors and stakeholders who must collaborate for connected vehicles to be a possibility.

Talking about “ITS” when in layman’s terms we mean “cars” is not helpful. We should be talking about optimal mobility, and this is vastly different in a dense urban environment to the shape it takes in the Highlands.

The timescales we need to bear in mind are very different – 2020 for driverless vehicles, but our network managers have to think forward to 2050 at least. This makes it harder for OEMs and network owners/managers to work effectively together. At the same time, the latter should now start to think of roads as a utility rather than a fixed asset like a building. Also relevant in this area is that the roads network in the UK outside the Highways England domain is very fractured.

Evidencing the benefits – assuming that there are some – is not easy if it is done accurately and realistically. Defining what the market will be in say ten years is in truth not possible, whatever some analysts may claim. To an extent, demonstrating benefits is perhaps not needed. The iPad is an excellent example of something nobody knew they wanted until it appeared and then they wanted it in large numbers and at considerable cost.

Getting services and data to drivers is easy. Getting cooperation between all the actors to create good services and data is the hard bit. We do need to be ready to go if we are invited to the Ball and make ourselves invited if we are not.

U

ITS (UK)’s Secretary General asks how

can connected Cinderella go to the Ball?

14

Jennie MartinJennie Martin is Secretary General of ITS (UK)

[email protected]

“ There is a trend now of connected vehicles being

equated merely with infotainment and this severely

undersells the potential benefi ts of these technologies ”




Smart CCTV Ltd 8 Dragoon House, Hussar Court, West Side View, Waterlooville PO7 7SFTel 02392 248250 Web www.smartcctvltd.com Email [email protected]

Transport Network Resilience Solutions

Automatic Incident Detection Infrastructure Security Parking Management

ANPR

sensing

Laser Scanners

Zenco Systems are the UK’s leading provider of civil traffic and parking enforcement technology. The ZenGrab Digital Enforcement Suite of products automates the process of traffic and parking contravention enforcement.

For more information on the Zengrab camera range of products or to arrange a free, no obligation trial, please call Adrian Ford on +44 (0) 843 289 1826 or mobile +44 (0) 797 479 5476. Alternatively, email [email protected]

ZENGRAB. THE UK’S LEADING TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT SOLUTION.

Zenco Intelligent Technology.Effective, efficient traffic enforcement and compliance monitoring.

ENFORCEMENT OF:

BANNED TURN

BUS LANE

KEEP CLEAR

NO-ENTRY

ONE WAY

SCHOOL KEEP CLEAR

WEIGHT RESTRICTION

WIDTH RESTRICTION

YELLOW BOX JUNCTION

http://www.smartcctvltd.com



THE VIEW

+ Enforcement experience


he connected vehicle. Hype, happenstance or a heady upland where intelligent transport systems really deliver for drivers?

Some hype, yes. I’ve read a lot of articles that talk in dreamy terms of the benefits for

drivers and car makers, but few that really nail down a vision that appeals to the driver in me. I can see that sending data about the performance of my car to the car maker helps him design a better car to sell me in the future but it doesn’t do a lot for me, today.

Happenstance? Probably. Most of the connected vehicle innovations I’ve read about are only extrapolations from technology we are using today. We could all do with sat-navs that make better use of traffic data, or more intelligent choices about routes and I suspect both are already on the drawing board at TomTom and Garmin.

Of course, if the ‘connected vehicles’ we can buy today aren’t everything that drivers would want then we can’t entirely blame the car makers. For connected vehicles to deliver in a way that could be categorised as a step change in benefits for the motorist then a lot of things outside the control of car makers will also have to happen. For example, for a vehicle to be ‘connected’ at all times and making use of the full benefits that connectivity can offer then we are going to need a fast data network that can be accessed wirelessly wherever you are, in both rural and urban areas, at reasonable prices – and those of us who live in rural areas know that that is not a description you can yet apply to the mobile phone networks. And all traffic monitoring equipment and the data it produces will need to be publicly accessible via that network.

Then we’ll need far more information about our roads and communities to be digitised than we currently have access to – the ‘heady upland’ connected vehicle won’t just need to know where the road they are on leads to, but how wide it is, how high above sea level it is and where accidents have occurred on it. Then we’ll need to overlay that with real-time information such as the weather and traffic volumes, but not just on the motorways and in the cities, but on every mile of road throughout the land. For example, every junction and set of lights will need vehicle counting technologies to be deployed so that the connected vehicle can dynamically interrogate the

roads on your current and alternative routes and direct you accordingly.

So, if all of this came together, what would a connected vehicle that would really get my motor humming look like?

Obviously, I want it to have a sat-nav with traffic that has real time information about traffic everywhere. Nothing frustrates me more than my very expensive sat-nav chirping up ‘slow moving traffic expect 10 minutes delay’ when I’ve already pulled up at the back of the traffic jam. Or being told when I first put my destination in that ‘there are no traffic delays on your route’ and then finding my journey takes twice as long as it should. And, when I reach my destination I want it to automatically find me the nearest empty car parking space and tell me what the charge will be or suggest a cheaper space that is a little further away.

Then I want a car that dynamically retunes the engine, while I’m driving, to maximise my fuel efficiency. If the car

maker wants to collect that data in order to improve the next car I buy then that is fine but give me some benefit today!

Currently, I have an Alfa Romeo that uses a technology that Alfa call ‘DNA’ allowing me to manually select the driving mode I prefer for the sort of roads I’m on. I can select a settings for normal driving, or one that that delivers a more ‘sporty’ driving feel and a third setting which accentuates traction control in bad

weather. Today I have to choose these settings manually – in the connected car of the future they should be automatically selected according to the weather, road type and the way I’m driving. And as well as monitoring the roads I’m on, it should also monitor my heart rate and physiology in case I’m nodding off or losing concentration and automatically optimise the temperature and fresh air supply or use seat vibrations or pulses through the steering wheel if I need to be more alert.

And finally, I never want to stop at a toll booth or have to look for change at a parking meter again. I want my car to know I’m approaching a toll booth and make the payment automatically and I want it to know I’m pulling into a parking slot and pay the bill for me, whether the space is operated by Apcoa, Ringo or the local council. Then at the end of the month my car should email me a collated list of receipts and business miles that I can tag onto my expense claim without transcribing the details.

T

The former transport minister discusses his ideal connected car, cutting

through the hype of what could be to describe what needs to be

16

Dr Stephen Ladyman

“ For connected vehicles to deliver in a way that could be categorised as a step change

in benefi ts for the motorist then a lot of things outside the control of car makers will also

have to happen ”

Dr Stephen Ladyman was the UK Minister of State for

Transport between 2005-7. Today he is the Smart City

Ambassador for the Clearview Traffi c Group. He can be

contacted at stephen.ladyman@clearviewtraffi c.com

and Clearview Traffi c can be contacted at 01869 362800




THE VIEW

+ In my experience...

hat is a multi-modal interchange and what does it mean to the travelling public? In its most basic form it is a bus stop! This is where a traveller changes from one mode of transport to another. In its more

complex form and what most people mean by a multi-modal interchange is where travellers change from one mode of travel to another but there are a number of travel modes available at one location.

Many of us are creatures of habit working and living in a structured environment and as such we travel to the same destinations using the same modes of transport on a day-to-day basis. We usually plan ahead. We know where to change either to a different mode or in some cases to the same mode of transport. Our objective is to ensure we get to our destination as stress-free way as possible, minimising the potential for our journey to be disrupted. This means that generally on arrival at a multi-modal interchange we have already decided our preferred route. Why then does the ITS industry have such a big focus on multi-modal interchanges?

In many ways it is the ease and speed by which travellers can transfer between modes that reduces stress levels. The provision of a pleasant environment where travellers can access facilities such as cafes, shops and fast food outlets all add to the travellers feel good factor relative to that interchange.

Access to information relative to a traveller’s on-going destination is a minimum requirement. Providing that information in a format that meets the needs of the travellers needs some consideration and is one of the main challenges for the data providers. Commuters know the destination of their mode of transport even if they are getting off long before that destination. Less frequent travellers may not know that the “fast” train doesn’t stop at their destination unless they see the full list of stops being displayed on the platform, something that doesn’t always happen.

As with many elements of business the steady state environment is easy to manage and most people use a multi-modal environment for its convenience and facilities. When

disruption occurs they are familiar with the best alternative and just adjust their plans accordingly. If they have to wait, the interchange facilities make the delay more tolerable.

It is when the journeys are disrupted that travellers at multi-modal interchanges face the biggest challenge. Many interchanges are staffed with individual members of staff from a specific travel operators. They know their own services and the impact the disruption will have on them but they can’t always provide the traveller with the best advice when it could include a different mode of travel. This results in the traveller being faced with having multiple conversations to determine the best alternative journey to take. Should the interchange operator insist that staff with a complete knowledge of all transport modes are available at all time to support travellers if disruption occurs? If this

service isn’t provided, how can a traveller be sure they are getting the best advice on an alternative route?

Even when an alternative route home is identified will the travellers ticket be accepted on the alternative route – probably not and who can actually tell the customer whether it is or not? The ability to identify an alternative route using the modes available at an interchange should be a priority but it will require transport operators to collaborate more on accepting the tickets of another operator – do we see this ever happening? This presents a greater challenge than making the interchange environment

operationally effective. Providing effective information is part of the answer. Providing personalised route guidance information another part of the answer but without integrated and flexible ticketing these measures only go part of the way towards delivering effective multi-modal interchanges.

I agree the multi-modal interchanges should cater for as many modes of transport options as possible. We should also design them with some thoughts for the future. How long will it be before we see a stream of personal pods arriving and departing interchanges? The interchange designs need to be fully inclusive enabling all passengers including those with mobility challenges to freely access all transport modes. Where next will we encounter the fully effective multi-modal interchange?

W

David asks whether we are ready for multi-modal interchanges, and thinks about how the

different transport operators could work better together for travellers’ benefi t

David Bonn

“ Many interchanges are staffed with individual

members of staff from a specifi c travel operators - they

know their own services and the impact the disruption will have on them but they can’t always provide the traveller with the best advice when it

could include a different mode of travel. ”

David Bonn is a Director of Bonn Business

Solutions Limited based in Glasgow.

[email protected]. Bonnbusinesssolutions.co.uk




http://www.bonnbusinesssolutions.co.uk

THE VIEW

+ From the engineer...


ome columns are easier to write than others. This one has had several false starts. I attribute this, in part, to the overload

of information that I accumulated at Traffex. If you have had one or two Traffex events under your belt you know the pleasure of catching up with colleagues, customers and mates, often with one person fitting, at some point in your or their career, all three categories. Gossip and news and ideas are exchanged. Opportunities emerge, projects crystallise, and the challenge over the coming weeks is to act on these. If you have not yet attended (you are probably new to the industry) I can only commend it to you most warmly. The community of traffic control, ITS and signing, marking, structures, and many others are represented whether on the stands or walking the aisles. I saw lots of interesting products, met keen enthusiasm, passion even from people who enjoy delivering products and services or who share concerns and explore solutions.

It is about now that I put my hand up, because among all the stands there are always those providers of essential building blocks. The infrastructure, chambers, ducts, poles and their sockets, kerbs, safety barriers, in vivid polymers, in recycled tyres, in timber. And I am guilty of not paying attention. These are essential parts of our road network, and without these the fanciest, flashiest, smartest of technologies would fall.

This leads me to thoughts of closer integration. If we the technologists need these structures and street furniture then why is it we haven’t engaged with it more? I suppose I am pursuing the idea that, rather than bolt a detector or signal head onto a pole, bury a sensor in the carriageway, or erect a cabinet for a controller, could the function of these technologies be integrated with the structures? About now you may be thinking, does he not know about the controller in the bench? This was an experiment in using street seating as an enclosure. Surely the wide based pole is an archetypal adaption of infrastructure to support technology? And yes these are admirable experiments in integration, and, as with any experiment the outcome may defy expectation, either way. That is not a reason not to try. I would urge every product designer to take themselves out to a signalised junction, a

pedestrian crossing, an activated sign site, and look up and down the road, look

around, take note of what is there.And the idea does not just involve

making the infrastructure into equipment housings. How many of these structures could incorporate energy gathering? This extends

beyond solar cells (including some helpfully flexible designs) into areas of

micro-power harvesting. Temperature differences between sub-surface structures

and chamber covers, or poles, small scale turbines, vibration driven piezo-films, all are emergent

technologies (or more accurately are known technologies that become increasingly relevant as the power requirements of detection in particular, decrease).

Or, stimulated by the Traffex seminar programme, how can infrastructure support cycling, this resurgent mode? There have been substantial investments from LSTF. Schemes take up road space for cycle lanes, new cycle signals emerge (in the forthcoming

TSRGD). Cycling places demands on the infrastructure. Consider how to integrate highly visibly cycle signals at pedestrian crossings of cycle lanes, perhaps with active road studs across the cycle lane into the infrastructure to enhance cyclist compliance with their own signals – a known issue for at least one UK authority.

And then another infrastructure theme from Traffex, the autonomous vehicle. Trials are underway across the UK, and with these trials come concerns about responsibility, liability, insurance, effects of other services, and on a technical front, the need for vehicle to infrastructure and vehicle to vehicle data flows. How will the traffic control industry manage the transition from passive vehicles monitored from the roadside to a highly/fully integrated autonomous vehicle fleet each one advertising its position and listening out for other road users. Can suitable facilities be integrated into the infrastructure to support the autonomous vehicle sensing, collision avoidance, and traffic control?

And as I settle down and write my post-Traffex ‘to do’ list, I realise I have had my attention drawn to a number of fascinating infrastructure/technology projects. Maybe these could be the subject for a future column.

S

Mark asks whether the ITS industry pays enough attention to the

nuts-and-bolts side of the highways industry

18

Mark Pleydell

“ If we the technologists need these structures and street furniture then why is it we

haven’t engaged with it more? ”

Mark Pleydell is owner of Pleydell Technology

Consulting Ltd, drawing on 18 years of practice in

the traffi c industry. [email protected]




since 1895

Innovators in Passively Safe Products

Poleplug

Retention Socket – Orion

Call: 0800 1387410 www.ritherdon.co.uk

Do you want to know about ANPR’s future?

VECTOR – the very latest in ANPR technologyVysionics have long lead the field in ANPR, with firsts to market including Police ANPR, congestion charging, average speed enforcement and many more.

VECTOR brings together decades of real world ANPR experience, in a compact and highly capable integrated camera module.

VECTOR ApplicationsVECTOR provides a common platform for multiple Advanced ANPR applications, including:

• Average Speed Enforcement

• Bus Lane Enforcement

• Level Crossing Enforcement

• HGV Levy

• Journey Time Measurement

• Parking & Access Control

Vysionics offer a full end to end turnkey solution, from manufacture, initial design & installation through to maintenance and support.

Want to know more? Talk to our specialist Account Managers to learn what VECTOR could do for you.

For more information - Tel: 0118 313 0333 Email: info vysionics.com Web: www.vysionics.com

Solutions to improve roads, journeys and communities

http://www.vysionics.com

http://www.ritherdon.co.uk


THE VIEW

+ Social media


ello and welcome to what will be a regular quarterly column on the wonderful world of Social Media.

Along the way I’ll give you some thoughts, tips and ideas which you may be able to put to good use in your own organisation.

Let me start by introducing myself, it may give you an idea why I have the bare-faced cheek to be claiming any sort of expertise in this area. I have entered the Social Media consultancy business after nearly 30 years in broadcasting, working for both commercial and BBC stations in Wales as a presenter and manager. I was the most listened to commercial radio presenter in Wales for a decade with a daily audience of half a million listeners and was part of some of the most successful and profitable radio stations in the UK. I started using Social platforms around 2008 and quickly saw the benefits of using these new forms of conversation to build both my own and the station’s audiences.

The parallels between radio and Social Media are the reasons I have become fascinated by the rise of social and digital communication. The building of relationships and trust and the sharing of content on a 1-2-1 level are integral parts of both fields. Social Media platforms have given businesses and organisations the chance to get closer to their customers and stakeholders and by doing so strengthen the bond between them.

I talk a lot about the power and benefits of sharing content, both our own and that of others. One of the strong points of social channels is the ability to introduce your group of followers to content which you think is worth passing on. It is that endorsement that helps to build trust and forge relationships, particularly from a business and service perspective. Once your customer gains your trust you will become their first stop when they want fast, precise information.

This is why your platforms need to be accurate, up to date and a stream of fresh, interesting content. In many cases social channels are our first port of call when we are looking for the information we require. If I am trying to find out why one of my regular routes is particularly busy I will search on Twitter and without fail, get the answer. Of course the company website should still be well-stocked with information and up to the minute news but your Social Media platforms are where you

will get that first contact with your community.

I was interested to recently discover that the Highways Agency, now Highways England have decided to close down all their regional Twitter accounts and run just one national feed. There must be a good reason why they have taken this step but it has proved impossible to find it by searching online.

But I’m not convinced it’s a good move.When you take into account that the average distance

per journey is just over 7 miles it seems to point to the fact that your travel information outlets should be more regional not less. If I decide to follow my regional Twitter account for my preferred travel provider then I know that whenever I dip into the feed I have a better chance of finding content that is relevant and useful to me. The idea of merging all the regional accounts into one national mass of information seems to me the perfect way of making people go elsewhere for their travel information requirements.

It is no surprise that the huge growth in Social Media usage has increased the amount of mobile internet access. It may well be a topic we come back to in future but some new show why a mobile strategy is imperative.

In 2015, nearly 73% of mobile users will access the internet at least once per month. 64% of users access Social Media sites through their mobile devices.

In 2014, nearly 70% of Facebook’s advertising revenue came through mobile use.

They are number which show that the way you present your information via mobile sites and social channels should be as user friendly and clear as possible.

As information becomes more and more freely available, users are now becoming less and less patient when looking for the data they need. If you want them to trust you as a go-to provider then you need to be absolutely sure you are going to give them what they need in the least amount of clicks necessary. Don’t expect them to go searching through timelines and web pages, they won’t. They’ll go somewhere else.

There used to be a saying applied to a person who wanted something without delay or hindrance.

“They want it yesterday”, we would cry.In the new world of Social communication, sometimes,

yesterday is too late.

H

Our new columnist introduces himself by explaining why we as an industry have to

use social media interact with our customers, both business and consumers

20

Chris MooreChris Moore is the founder of

Social Media Solutions

www.chrismooremedia.co.uk

“ When you take into account that the average distance per journey is just over 7 miles it

seems to point to the fact that your travel information

outlets should be more regional not less ”


http://www.chrismooremedia.co.uk


For more information callRennicks MTS: 01928 579966www.rennicksmts.com

Standard &SolarDynaflex

Intelligent Pedestrian Crossing System

Rennicks MTS are at the forefront of traffic technology with intelligent, innovative solutions to make life safer and easier for road users.Striking tourist signs, active road studs, portable transport solutions and innovativepermanent and temporary traffic sign materials are just a few of the reasons we make travelling by road more enjoyable.

Tri-colour mVMS

SR Active Road Studs

The road to safetystarts with Rennicks MTS

T-25 SolarPowerPlatform

BluetoothTechnology

http://www.rennicksmts.com


THE INVESTIGATION

+ Getting to the core of the issue

n 1st April, the Highways Agency was no more, as Highways England took its place.

But apart from a different name and a new logo, what does it mean for its users, the drivers and passengers on the strategic road network in England?

I asked the Chief Executive of Highways England, Graham Dalton to give his views, and then asked a former

O

Highways at Atkins who is responsible for work with HE, Welsh Government, Transport Scotland and Transport NI.

Graham Dalton The changes to the way England’s major roads are managed reflect the need for certainty for everyone in our sector. Infrastructure needs long term planning to be effective and government needs certainty that investment plans for infrastructure can be delivered. This means having people, equipment and materials in place. For this to happen our suppliers need long term certainty to invest in their capacity and capability and we need the certainty to ensure we can deliver efficiently. We now have that certainty in a five year plan and we’ve set out how we’ll make it happen in our Delivery Plan.

Lee Woodcock Peter, what is your role in this? Peter Antolik Because the government is now providing Highways England with greater decision-making powers and increased, longer-term funding, it requires independent assurance about the levels of performance and efficiency that Highways England is delivering. The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) independent monitoring and enforcement will provide that.

Lee And what will be your benchmarks? Peter Antolik Last December the UK government announced a £15bn roads investment plan for England’s strategic roads network until 2021. A specific rationale for the change was to move roads spending away from short-term decisions to a longer-term funding outlook reflecting the timeframes of major infrastructure investment. This longer-term security of funding should allow Highways England to realise efficiencies, alongside delivery of a five year performance specification and investment plan, which includes outcomes on:

Making the network safer Minimising disruption from road

works and incidents Delivering better environmental

outcomes

INVESTIGATION BY LEE WOODCOCK

22

All change on the roads

politician’s view, by talking to the ex-Labour Transport Minister and current Smart Highways columnist Dr Stephen Ladyman. And another organisation has a new name, as the Office of Rail Regulation becomes the Office of Rail and Road. So I questioned Peter Antolik, the Highways Director, to see how he’ll be involved.

I then spoke to my colleague Lesley Waud, who has recently been appointed Market Director, Strategic




Increasing the capacity of the network

Our focus is on putting in place a monitoring regime to track Highways England’s performance against the Roads Investment Strategy and the delivery of clear benefits for all strategic roads network users. We are currently consulting on our proposed approach for the new monitoring regime to track Highways England’s performance. This sets out ORR’s strategic objective on securing improved performance and value for money from the strategic road network, and explains how ORR will hold Highways England to account.

Lee Graham, how’s the transition been going? Graham Dalton Highways England is a different type of organisation, better equipped to support the journeys of today, while investing in those of tomorrow. As well as longer-term funding, Highways England has more flexibility than the Highways Agency while still remaining accountable to government. This means we can be better at modernising, maintaining and operating England’s motorways and major A roads. Our transition has gone well and our people are focused on delivering over the next five years.

Lee But Stephen Ladyman isn’t so sure it’s necessary... Dr Stephen Ladyman Frankly, I don’t know what they can do now as a ‘Government Company’ that they couldn’t do before as an Agency. Clearly having a fixed five year budget is a step forward but there was nothing stopping the Government giving them that certainty when they were an Agency. And don’t kid yourself that they are now free from ‘political control’ – road spending, and in particular, which roads will get built or improved are matters over which Ministers will always want control.

Lee Lesley has opinions on the changes. Lesley Waud One of the major changes for me is that, as suppliers, we’ll have opportunities to plan further ahead with visibility of the forward

programme. We’ve moved away from the annualised budgets, which have always caused challenges so we now have a better opportunity to plan for the future and make sure we have the right resources in place to support the changes that will be necessary to deliver the programme, particularly with respect to technology changes. Having personally spent a few months on secondment to what was the HA, I can appreciate the challenges they’ve faced and the fact that they were constantly asked to justify their actions and decisions and my perception is that they now have a greater level of freedom. So while they’ll still have to justify decisions, they’ll hopefully be able to take a different approach.

Lee What was your experience of the old Highways Agency when it was in your portfolio as minister? Dr Stephen Ladyman I always

found them responsive and helpful. Some government agencies can be a little defensive but the HA always responded constructively to my suggestions and ideas and when they faced challenges we dealt with them together and efficiently. Of course, a Minister would expect no less but you don’t always get that response when the chips are down. Shortly after my taking up the job, two HA workers were killed by a driver speeding through road works in bad weather. I asked the HA for a focus on road worker safety and they responded with improvements including the wide roll out of average speed cameras and I’m very proud to say we didn’t lose another worker during my time in office.

Lee Peter – how can a group of rail experts regulate roads? Peter Antolik ORR was chosen as there is a natural fit between road monitoring and rail regulation, with a similar skillset required. ORR has experience of regulating a complex transport network (Britain’s railways) operated by a large single infrastructure company (Network Rail). We intend to extend our joined-up approach to our new role as Highways Monitor, and will look to forge synergies between our rail and roads functions. We will share experience between the two roles and will set up a process for sharing best practice, for example on monitoring enhancement schemes, supply chain management, asset management and cost analysis.

Lee So, Graham, what is Highways England concentrating its budget on? Graham Dalton We’ll be delivering £11 billion of investment over the next five years. The majority of this, almost £8 billion, will be focused on delivering major improvements including a spine of smart motorways across the country and the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon. These improvements will provide new capacity, reduce congestion and help to underpin economic growth.

We will also be ensuring that our network is well maintained. In our first year we will be laying 1,200 lanes miles of new, smoother road surface and upgrading technology alongside our roads in 375 locations.

Contributors in

this article write

on their own

behalf and not on

behalf of Atkins.

Editorial control

remains with

Smart Highways

23

ABOUT THE ATKINS INVESTIGATION

ATKINS IS A COMPANY which will always work for its clients to understand the issues involved and provides expertise, answers and ideas in ITS, and now more recently in Smart Cities and Intelligent Mobility. Delivering an appropriate and sustainable transportation network for the 21st century is an exciting challenge. Atkins is committed to planning, designing and enabling our clients’ transportation programmes.

Atkins has a proven track record of successfully planning, designing and enabling urban transport and environmental improvements across all scales of developments. Successful transport strategies examine the journeys that people need to make in all aspects of their lives and provide realistic travel options. The services provided to clients range from strategic policy advice and performance management, through all aspects of demand forecasting, behavioural analysis, to accessibility, transport for land development,

Atkins supports the Atkins Investigation in Smart Highways because the investigation, like Atkins, gets to the heart of an issue in order to understand it, and then utilise the knowledge and understanding to help

for them make the right decisions safe in the knowledge they have the facts.




+ Getting to the core of the issue

Graham Dalton We know a lot about how satisfied our customers are about their experience of using our roads but we’re now doing a lot more now to understand the different priorities of our customers.

As well as engaging with our customers directly, we will work closely with Transport Focus to ensure that we are meeting the needs of those that use our network.

Our £120m Innovation Fund will support the modernisation of the network by developing services to support expressways and smart motorways; information provision and data collection; and safe, efficient and sustainable travel. This includes supporting the testing and introduction of connected vehicles on the network; off-road trials of wireless power transfer technologies, detection systems at the Hindhead tunnel and wi-fi technology in the South East.

Our Innovation, Technology and Research Strategy will be published next spring and will set out our long term plans for driving innovation and delivering a smarter network.

Lee Lesley, who do you think the customer is? Lesley Waud I think we do know who the customer is but maybe don’t realise that we do, because most of us drive on the strategic road network and have family and friends who do so. We also know businesses rely on the network to transport goods and deliver services. And emergency services use it to transport patients and things like blood. The end recipient, who may be waiting for a delivery, they’re a customer as well.

I think that one of the things we need to do differently is to consider how those customers might feel about the journeys they undertake and the experience they’re about to have or have had. We need to think about what we’re asking them to do.

There are different users from the professional drivers to the infrequent driver who may be intimidated by the network and I’m not sure we do think about that.

There’s an excellent opportunity with Transport Focus to understand customers better and I believe there’s

already engagement with the RHA and FTA but do we do enough with the organisation representing disabled drivers, for example?

Lee Dr Ladyman says money should be spent where there is a clear business case. Dr Stephen Ladyman In the five year roads programme that was announced before the election there were a lot of road improvements that were only in the list to appeal to voters in marginal seats. For example, there is no question that there is a need to improve the efficiency of the routes to the South West but a £1bn plus tunnel under Stonehenge won’t be the answer. There will always be road schemes elsewhere, even in the South West, which offer a better cost-benefit ratio than spending £1bn on a 1 mile tunnel.

Lee Graham, What does the emergence of intelligent mobility mean to the role of Highways England?Graham Dalton Intelligent mobility is the big challenge. We have to develop long term infrastructure in an environment where social needs and travel patterns are changing rapidly. The only thing we really know is that nobody knows how transport in general and roads in particular will be used in another 30 years.

Lee Stephen agrees it will be a challenge… Dr Stephen Ladyman But also an opportunity. HE have a leadership position in the roads sector and local authorities will look to them for ideas and inspiration. I find a lot of local authorities want to harness the benefits of intelligent mobility but they don’t have the confidence to make things happen and they are too focussed on their core tasks to innovate but perhaps HE can show them the way.

Lee And ITS is very important?Graham Dalton Our network depends on modern and older technology which helps us to manage traffic and underpins the operation of smart motorways. However we increasingly recognise the need to go further and we need ITS to step forward.

24

As well as modernising and maintaining the road network we also have a duty to keep traffic moving. Our Traffic Officers dealt with over 437,000 incidents in the last year helping to minimise disruption to our customers and the nation’s economy. We’re committed to improving this service by working with the emergency services to open the road or lanes more quickly after incidents and using new technology to remove stranded and overturned vehicles.

Lee Stephen, I’m interested in the fact that there’s a lot about serving the customer, but I’m not sure who the customer is. Who would you think of? Dr Stephen Ladyman I suppose the HA would say their key customers are the motorists, logistics companies and commuters that use the roads. Call me a cynic though, I think the reality is that their key customer is still the same as it has always been, it’s the Government. The Government pays the bills, and those motorists and commuters are all voters and expect Ministers and MPs to take responsibility for road building, congestion and road pollution. It’s been a trend of Government’s in recent years to create ‘arms length’ bodies to manage services but whilst they might try and devolve the blame for tough decisions to these bodies the public simply don’t buy it and whether its roads or the NHS the public expect the Buck to stop with the Government.

Lee Graham says there is going to be a slight change of approach.

THE INVESTIGATION



GRAHAM DALTON is Chief Executive of Highways England. He

took on that role in the Highways Agency in 2008.

DR STEPHEN LADYMAN was Transport Minister in Tony Blair’s

Government between 2005 and 2007 with responsibility for the

Highways Agency.

PETER ANTOLIK is the Highways Director, Offi ce of Rail

and Road

We are living through an information revolution; a time where information is all-powerful and connectivity to data has the potential to make a real difference to our lives. On our roads we can see vehicles that are far more connected than ever before. This means that over time drivers will increasingly demand much quicker access to real time information about their journeys. As the body response for the road network, we need systems that enable us to manage traffic better and provide that link to drivers.

Dr Stephen Ladyman ITS is key to the whole role of Highways England. I suppose the most obvious example of that is what we now call Managed Motorways. The benefits of what was then called Active Traffic Management were obvious even while the trial on the M42 was still underway and it was clear that we could use it to reduce congestion on a wide range of roads at a much cheaper price than road widening schemes. Pushing ahead with more schemes was politically unpopular as people assumed hard shoulder running would be dangerous and I even found myself appearing before a select committee to defend the policy. Time and experience have proved it was the right decision.

Lee And, Peter, technology will provide the information you need to see if they’re doing the job properly? Peter Antolik By the summer, Highways England will have developed a data improvement plan, making more information available on the company’s performance, and providing ORR with the evidence needed to provide robust advice to the Secretary of State on future performance requirements. ORR has the power to carry out enforcement action where Highways England has contravened or is contravening compliance with the Roads Investment Strategy or compliance with its licence. We are currently developing a draft intervention and enforcement policy which sets out how we will carry out our enforcement role and will consult on this shortly. This will reflect guidance issued by the Secretary of State and HM

Treasury as to the circumstances in which payment of a fine should be required.

Lee What are your priorities, Graham? Graham Dalton The first priority for Highways England is safety. That’s improving safety for drivers as well as for our workforce who can be working near to traffic or responding to incidents. We’re committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured by at least 40% by the end of 2020. Our five year plan for safety, Driving Forward Safety, will be published this autumn and will set out how we will, with our partners, achieve this goal.

Second, we’re faced with the challenge of delivering three times as much investment but at a much lower unit cost and with a lower impact on drivers and road users. This means we will need to work with our suppliers to develop better ways of working, driving efficiencies and boosting productivity.

Third, we need to deliver great customer service. This will require us to change the culture of the business so that it is thinking of its customers first. This includes those who use, rely on or live near our road network.

Lee Stephen and Lesley, if you were head of Highways England, what would your priorities be? Dr Stephen Ladyman Congestion is the biggest challenge we face on the roads and needs to be the top priority. The answer is not always road building and ITS can often be more effective than laying concrete and will usually be cheaper. Information gathering and making that information available to motorists should be the second priority. If we have to live with congestion at least make sure that drivers have the information they need, at the time they need it, so that we can try to avoid it or if that isn’t possible plan our lives around it.

Thirdly, encourage innovation. Don’t always look to the ‘big boys’ for ideas, especially in relation to ITS, as smaller companies often have the leading edge ideas. It’s often difficult

for SMEs to elbow their way into projects so look for ways to make life easier for them. Also sometimes they may need help getting type approval for new kit with great potential so the HE shouldn’t be afraid to help.

Lesley Waud I’ve seen a lot more integration across the Highways England team and its directorates across the organisation and this should continue. It needs to continue the ambition to work collaboratively with the supply change because that’s the only way we’ll be able to make a step change and deliver the Plan going forward. And the last one is to encourage and challenge everyone to be innovative and adventurous and act as an enabler to that.

LEE’S SUMMARY A fascinating discussion! It is clear colleagues see the move to Highways England an opportunity but not without its challenges, the upside of the forward programme is a key enabler to delivery and will no doubt help Highways England and its supply

outcomes. However, this issue of really understanding the customer won’t go away, technology and data will help but are only a means to an end, so the role of Intelligent Mobility and Highways England could be a game changer!LEE WOODCOCK is Director, Highways &

Transportation at Atkins

Email [email protected]

LESLEY WAUD is Market Director of Strategic Highways,

Transportation at Atkins

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 2 25t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net




MULTI-MODAL INTEGRATION

+ City-HUB project

WORDS BY KATIE MILLARD

26

Smooth transition


Interchanges play an important role in increasing the attractiveness of seamless, smart, clean and safe multi-modal public transport. There are now several examples of successful major interchanges such as St Pancras International, which have become destinations in their own right. But interchanges are still often considered to be a ‘grey’ area when it comes to transport planning and the roles of private and public players are not always clear.

St Pancras International station has become a

destination in its own right



Major interchanges usually benefit from a higher level of investment and expert advice whilst mid-

sized or smaller-sized transfer points are often organised by local authorities. The City-HUB project is designed to help fill some of these gaps and help set out more clearly the roles and responsibilities of those that might own and/or operate, or use the interchange: the transport operators, local authorities, private sector interests and the passengers. This European project aims to develop guidelines and principles that can be transferred between Member States.

THE PROJECTAs congestion increases, more trips will need to be switched from cars to other modes. However, as our journeys become more complex, managing our demand for mobility will mean managing the integration of different transport modes. Traditionally, the focus for improving public transport was all about the trip made on it; but this part of the journey can no longer be viewed in isolation and ‘the whole journey experience’ has become more important.

Passenger trips should now be thought of in terms of transferring with, and between, non-motorised modes as well as motorised modes. Comfortable and convenient connections between all modes (bus, tram, rail, shared modes, walking and cycling) are the pivot of intermodal transport.

Passenger intermodality is therefore not just a planning principle, but starts as a policy approach that aims to provide passengers with a seamless journey, using one or more different modes of transport in a combined trip chain. The European Forum on Intermodal Passenger Travel defines passenger intermodality as ‘a characteristic of a transport system that allows at least two different modes to be used in an integrated manner in a door-to-door transport chain.’

An increasing number of trips use more than one mode and the moment two or more transport modes need to be used on the same trip, an interchange ‘journey’ will be made,

ie a connecting link between these two modes. The performance and efficiency of these connections can influence the overall performance of the trip itself and passenger satisfaction.

The City-HUB project (www.cityhub-project.eu), funded by the European Commission, brings together 11 leading research institutes from across Europe. The project compares and contrasts successful multi-

modal interchanges in a number of countries, including Finland, Spain, Greece, Hungary as well as here in the United Kingdom. It has developed The City-HUB model (below), a process covering the different aspects that should be considered whilst planning, constructing, refurbishing and operating interchanges.

In the case of urban intermodal transport terminals, external stakeholders are becoming more active

27


+ City-HUB project

“ As our journeys become more complex, managing our demand for mobility will mean managing the integration of different transport modes ”

Convenient connections between modes are the pivot of intermodal transport


http://www.cityhub-project.eu

http://www.cityhub-project.eu




+ City-HUB project

in both the planning and operation. The reason for the expansion of their role was found to be due to several factors:

The need to reflect the differing requirements and expectations of different user groups in order to provide mobility for all;

To increase the attractiveness of public transport hubs beyond their transport function but also as public spaces;

Increased attention and legal requirements to cope with traffic safety, security issues and environmental protection legislation; and

Greater diversity of infrastructure ownership and service operation that involve more partners from both public and private sectors.

For these reasons the planning, operations and management processes have become more complex and it is important to have an effective management strategy and engage all stakeholders in the processes in a timely and effective manner.

WHO DOES THE WORK?Typically the following stakeholders need to be involved:

Developers – those in charge of the terminal construction funding, design and construction project management. There are three main types of developers – public (such as governmental agencies); private or public-private partnerships; and private parties. The developer’s aim is commonly to complete the project within the shortest timeframe and with the lowest costs. Extensive

stakeholder engagement is often seen as a time wasting exercise and therefore this needs to be undertaken earlier rather than later in the project planning phase. Any changes required after the building permit is given, and construction works started, can lead to excessive overruns and costs.

Operators – in charge of the terminal or operational aspects of the interchange. Typically these can be the municipality or city authority, the public transport company or organising authority, a specialised public or private company or an owner-operator. The operational aspects and those that will eventually be responsible for it should also be represented in the consultation process. This is often not the case due to the procurement process of this service which is only organised after the design and construction project phases.

Transport providers/operators – those that will be providing the transport services are crucial partners, as their services satisfy the main function of the interchange hub. Operators are responsible for those using their services in terms of safety and

security and they must also comply with other legislative requirements and standards. With the increasing transport market liberalisation and competitiveness, the number of operators using a single hub is on the increase.

Transport infrastructure owners - in some cases these stakeholders may be different to those that operate the transport modes; this is particularly the case for rail. This group includes the rail metro/tram track operators, but also the power supply systems (eg substations, overhead catenary etc); as well as other players such as Park & Ride operators and the passenger information owners.

Public administration – this group can include the relevant transport (organising) authority, local and regional agencies responsible for health, safety, buildings, the environment and the police and fire service. The role of all these public bodies and authorities is set by the relevant legislation and competences.

General public – represented by local citizens groups, the local business community, transport users’ associations and other civic groups (eg associations representing people with disabilities), environmental groups and professional groups (eg architects) and those that will be affected by the interchange. The legal position of many of these groups provides them with a right to comment on the development process through public consultation. However as their needs may be contradictory, those interested in building or changing the property need to take a balanced view. Another group of important partners are non-transport service providers – shopkeepers, restaurant owners, banks. According to the practice experienced in the City-HUB and other mobility projects, their importance is either very strong or insignificant.

The City-HUB project found that thinking needs to go beyond the

28

“ It is important to have an effective management strategy and engage all stakeholders in the processes in a timely and effective manner ”


Public transport hubs need to be attractive as public spaces

KATIE MILLARD is Sustainable

Transport

Researcher at TRL

[email protected]




‘physical’ integration of transport as there are several other aspects that need to be considered for interchanges to be truly successful. This includes all transport related aspects such as integrated fares and ticketing, information systems and the design and functions of the space, and the potential opportunities for retail and other services that can enhance the customer experience.

TRL led the project’s work on Efficient and Smart Design which included identifying and defining best practice under numerous themes, including connectivity between modes, information systems, facilities and services, building elements, and energy efficiency.

A passenger survey was undertaken to investigate the overall satisfaction of users at different locations across Europe, as well as looking in more detail at the most important aspects for users.

The case study locations used were: Moncloa in Madrid; Kamppi in Helsinki; Ilford, one of CrossRail’s interchange points on the eastern outskirts of London; Köbánya-Kispest in Budapest, and the New Railway Station at Thessaloniki in Greece.

IN CONCLUSIONBoth interchange characteristics and conditions, and the individuals’ characteristics and behaviour, were found to significantly influence overall satisfaction levels. The most important factors according to the users’ requirements and preferences were: Travel Information, Safety and Security, Transfer Communication and Services.

As part of the project, TRL developed a Guide for Efficient and Smart Design, which formed the foundations for the main project

output: The CityHUB Handbook. This innovative guide provides a checklist of good practice holistic guidance for interchanges, based on the work undertaken in the project, covering:

Governance (ownership and governance, management and operation structures, stakeholder engagement)

Organisation of the facilities (spatial organisation, connections between transport, movements and flows within the interchange, movements and flows within the wider interchange area)

Making the interchange attractive (transport services, information and intermodal services, interchange design and management, safety and security)

Users (understanding the interchange, inclusivity, facilities).

From this, eight guiding principles were developed. These are considered to be fundamental to the planning, design, development and operation of efficient and smart interchanges and are:

Clarity of purpose and functions Accessibility Legibility Intermodality Management and ownership

structures Financing and business models Regulations and legal aspects Dynamism and relevance

Work on the project was completed in Spring 2015, with outputs including the CityHUB model and the CityHUB Handbook providing guidance on the design of successful interchanges. The outcomes of the project are currently being edited into a book, set to be published later in 2015.

“ The City-HUB project found that thinking needs to go beyond the ‘physical’ integration of transport… such as integrated fares and ticketing, information systems and the design and functions of the space, and the potential opportunities for retail and other services ”

Download an Aimsun 8 free trial version for Windows, Mac or Linux

from www.aimsun.comor contact [email protected]

for features and pricing.

Traffic modelingwithout boundaries

dynamic traffic assignment in a

single, easy-to-use package

meso and micro simulation and

Travel demand modeling, hybrid

http://www.aimsun.com




+ Managing the demand case study

oSwift is an Estonian company which operates a digital queue management service for vehicles

crossing from the EU into countries outside of the EU. By combining the pre-booking of a scheduled timeslot to cross the border, together with a virtual queue, GoSwift has been extremely successful in removing long lines of trucks queuing to cross borders.

GoSwift’s main aim is to reduce vehicles queuing and causing congestion. Primarily around ports, where trucks are loading/offloading onto ferries/ships, where there is limited land available for parking or where authorities would prefer to use prime land for other uses other than parking trucks.

GoSwift operates a digital queue management service for vehicles crossing from the EU into countries outside of the EU. By combining the pre-booking of a scheduled timeslot to cross the border, together with a virtual queue, GoSwift has been extremely successful in removing

long lines of trucks queuing to cross borders. Picking up a number of awards along the way, including the Transport Achievement Award at the International Transport Forum’s 2015 Annual Summit. The border pre-booking service has been operational since 2011 and now operates in 4 countries (Finland, Russia, Estonia

and Lithuania) at 9 border crossing points. Before the pre-booking service was implemented, trucks queued along the side of main roads leading to the border crossing point for many kilometers.

Drivers sometimes had to wait up to 6 days alongside the road, without any facilities - causing environmental issues, traffic congestion and traffic safety problems.

HOW IT WORKSWith the implementation of the GoSwift service, vehicles can now cross borders in under an hour. Drivers can wait in designated waiting areas away from the border crossing point, where there is sufficient parking space and facilities, including restaurants, shops, toilets, showers etc. Only vehicles that are “called” to go to the border crossing point, via SMS and large screens, may proceed past the check point. GoSwift therefore controls the amount of vehicles traveling to the border and at the border, thereby reducing congestion.

With an effective “pull” method, the

WORDS BY PAUL HUTTON

30

Following their successful implementation of a vehicle booking system to cross external EU borders, GoSwift, the queue management service provider is investigating opportunities to expand into other areas of multi-modal transportation


Queue no more

“ Before the pre-booking service was implemented, trucks queued for up to six days alongside the road, without any facilities ”

G

Above, Mike Tiffi n, Senior Manager at GoSwift



electronic queuing system ensures that there is a steady stream of vehicles moving to the border in a controlled manner. Instead of vehicles rushing to the border crossing point, effectively “pushing”, creating congestion and a long queue. The “calling” system can also be configured to change the amount of cars called, via SMS and live screens, according to the time of day, avoiding peak hours and rush hours.

Drivers can use the internet, a call-centre which is operational 24/7 or waiting areas to reserve their crossing time in hourly timeslots.

By booking several days in advance, drivers can plan their journey time, forecast when they will arrive at the border crossing point and not have to wait in a queue. Drivers can arrive “just-in-time” at the border, the system checks if they have reserved a timeslot and if they have arrived at the correct time, if so, then they may proceed.

There is also allowance made for a priority queue for goods that need to be cleared quickly, eg perishable goods. The new system has eased the export of produce outside of the EU, with the much quicker transfer time meaning perishable goods have a greater success of reaching their destination on time.

Trade and tourism statistics show increased activity across the border. Between 2010 and 2013, exports from Estonia to Russia grew by more than 66%, and the number of Russian visitors to Estonia increased by 35% in 2013. The Estonian Association of International Road Transport Carriers estimates that Estonian carrier

companies have been able to save €4m annually thanks to the GoSwift service.

WHAT IS A VIRTUAL QUEUE?The virtual or electronic queue allows users to join a queue but not physically take their place in the queue. Drivers can join the queue and watch their progression in the queue by logging onto the system and viewing their queue position, with an estimated time of how long it will take to process the vehicles ahead of them, before they are called to the border. The real-time information allows drivers to plan their journeys and use their time more effectively.

The advantages of virtual queuing are that people are free to move around and do other more productive things, rather than waiting in a line. For example a driver may see how long the queue is and join the virtual queue whilst en route to the border, instead of arriving at the border and then joining a queue, with a long waiting time.

The queue management system automatically takes into account the booked vehicles per timeslot and it allows enough capacity to combine the virtually queued vehicles, to ensure that the virtual queue also moves.

Some drivers prefer to join the

31


+ Managing the demand case study

FOR MORE INFORMATION email Mike Tiffi n at

Mike.Tiffi [email protected]


virtual queue, instead of having an exact timeslot. The virtual queue is also used to accommodate drivers that have not made a reservation and need to join the queue to cross the border at the soonest opportunity.

The virtual queue helps to take up the “slack” in the system and always ensure that there is a buffer of vehicles that are ready to be processed by border authorities. Therefore the border operation can operate at full efficiency as the virtual queue ensures that as long as there are vehicles registered in the system, then they will be called to cross the border.

CAN GOSWIFT BENEFIT PORTS?Many ports are built in the centre of towns/cities, on prime valuable land. The GoSwift vehicle booking service and traffic management system allows vehicles to be parked outside of cities on less expensive land and called to board or load at the appropriate time, instead of providing large parking areas on expensive land right near the port or having trucks queue along access roads and causing congestion.

GoSwift could reduce the need for trucks to park alongside busy access roads to ports, if drivers have reserved a specific time to enter the port. When port operations are affected by bad weather, trucks could be queued digitally using the GoSwift service, parked remotely and then called to the port at the right time, possibly ending the need for Operation Stack.

The obvious advantages of the system are that trucks/drivers are utilised more effectively, instead of wasting time queuing and the reduction of pollution with less truck idling or starting up to inch forward to a new position.

Already in the four years of operation GoSwift has saved the logistics industry millions and reduced carbon emissions.

It is the secondary benefits of easing traffic flow and offering alternative land use that may be of most interest to city authorities. It’s clear that other multi-modal operators other than port operations, may also find solutions which benefit from using such a vehicle booking and management system.

Queue management in operation at ports and boarding ferries

“ It is the secondary benefi ts of easing traffi c fl ow and offering alternative land use that may be of most interest to city authorities ”





+ A personal view

’ve being trying to make transport work for over 38 years with mixed success but when you stop doing

it every day, you perhaps start to see things a little bit more clearly:

Transport operations are a series of simple tasks but putting them all together without one not quite working is pretty difficult

Each of our customers has reasonable and reasonably simple requirements but no two have exactly the same ones

We all need to think in a “context aware” manner, it is about where I am, why I am there, what is my purpose, how important is my time, what do I need and even how do I feel?

The transport industry generally thinks and acts as operators not as service providers to customers who have choice, and finally

Transport is an enabler not an end in itself (despite the interests of some of the people I have worked with)

In recent years my focus has been on travel information and multi-modal issues, firstly at National Rail Enquiries and then setting up Transport Direct, the world’s first national, multi-modal travel information service. But what does multi-modal mean and how do we meet customers’ needs?

Firstly, integration is not about trying to achieve the nirvana of all public transport modal timetables connecting with each other, that is both impossible and also totally wasteful in terms of resources. Rather it should be the right mode, or combinations of modes for the right solution. The South East of England must be the world’s biggest Park and Ride network, even if rail customers don’t drive, then walking is normally the mode of choice.

In urban areas, where Park and Ride is effective, then bus is the obvious means of onward travel into the city centre with its high frequency and the ability to penetrate the urban centre and call

at a number of locations. If these models are reversed and planners attempt to provide buses to access rail commuting stations or use rail as the mode for urban park and ride then we see very poor resource utilisation. Indeed if one looks at the problems caused on Cross Country trains between Birmingham and Coventry or on Great Western between Bristol and Filton Abbey Wood where local and long-distance demand come together on limited capacity services then we see the obvious imbalance.

The general factor that links transport modes and indeed origins and destinations for journeys is their geographical location and their proximity to one another. Traditionally transport modes have operated in isolation, this became obvious to me when we were setting up Transport Direct. As an example at a location that I know well, High Wycombe station was traditionally referenced on a line of route rail geography. So that it was measured from Beaconsfield and Saunderton

WORDS BY NICK ILLSLEY

32

Above: the Southeast’s railnetwork is effectively a huge Park and Ride scheme

Nick Illsley spent most of his working life in the rail industry, doing everything from running Scarborough Station to planning and delivering the Total Route Modernisation of the Chiltern Line. He then moved to run Transport Direct for the Department for Transport, introducing a truly multi-modal transport information system. Here he gives his thoughts on his career


A lifetime with customers in transport

I

NICK ILLSLEY is now

an independent

consultant

[email protected]




stations (on either side) but it had no reference to the bus stop outside the station or to the local road network.

By changing the referencing to a geographical basis suddenly High Wycombe station had a spatial relationship with the bus network, the road network and the location in Wycombe itself such as the hospital and the university. It was also much easier to identify disconnects between networks and indeed, by adding timetables, between services. Having made this linkage and bringing the modes together users were enabled to plan door-to-door journeys and also to compare the options available including with driving. And in addition the advent of mobile communications means that the device knows where you are and that can be linked to the availability of travel options nearby.

Is this important for transport? Well the fact that Google offer their Google Transit as a core, free offering probably gives you the answer!

Much of the discussion and intellectual angst in transport has been expended on public transport and achieving the holy grail of modal shift. In moving away from the rail industry and looking at all modes of transport, the possibilities of improving the lot of the motorist and the haulier seemed to me to be a minority activity, despite the fact that this is inevitably the dominant mode of transport.

Transport matters so much in terms of productivity, competitiveness and the overall quality of life that the needs and opportunities of the road sector should be the obsession of many more of us. A couple of background facts to illustrate this; firstly research shows that it is much easier to persuade travellers

to change the time or route of their journey than to change their mode. Secondly that three or four people in a car is usually more sustainable in terms of emissions per passenger mile than most of public transport. The reality however is that in most traffic jams there is 75% spare capacity as the average occupancy of most vehicles in only a little over one!

In recent years the biggest advance in transport information has been Satellite Navigation devices, especially in unfamiliar locations and for the “last mile”. This is being followed rapidly by the possibilities of the connected vehicle, with most cars now being built with on-line capability. The possibilities this provides are almost limitless but to make these work for the benefit of drivers, for the infrastructure owners and also for the policy makers across transport, and indeed for business and other parts of the fabric of the nation, is very challenging.

In considering the possibilities of connected vehicles, ubiquitous communications and the availability of almost limitless data and information, my Director General Steve Gooding posed the simple question, “with all this capability, what would you like to be true that is not possible now?” This was followed by an even more simple challenge, “when I get to the back of a traffic queue, why can’t I be told what is happening at the front?”

Nevertheless, there is a massive prize, to better match the supply and demand for transport infrastructure and services, leading to more reliable journeys, better use of resources, efficiency for business and industry, improving the possibilities of leisure activity and perhaps most importantly raising the satisfaction levels of the users of transport infrastructure and services.

33


+ A personal view


“ Research shows it is easier to persuade travellers to change the time or route of their journey than to change their mode ”

Before and after images of cycling improvements on the A5111-A52 Raynesway near Derby


http://www.radixtraffic.co.uk




+ Cycling safety

Q Daisy, Highways England’s network includes a lot of roads

where cycling is prohibited, so why is cycling that important?I think our network can act as a barrier to people who want to access jobs or parts of their local community so we’re really keen to avoid what we call community severance where we’ve got a motorway or a major A road going through the middle of a community and in terms of cycling we’re looking at ways of making our network less of a barrier.

On some of our A roads you can cycle along the side so we’re looking at ways of making that safer, so whilst we might not have that much of the network in terms of percentage the geographic coverage means it will affect cyclists trying to go about their daily business.

Q Is this a policy change for Highways England to actually

consider cyclists as another mode of transport rather than just a different type of road user?Well now we’re Highways England our designated funding means we can really focus on cycling, so we’re able

to make improvements for cyclists. So in terms of coming up with a way to prioritise cycling and cycling schemes separate to those for motorists has been a part of how we’re going to spend that money.

Q So Bruce, how do you go about deciding where the priorities are

in spending that money?We got in contact with British Cycling, CCC – the national cycling charity – and Sustrans and together with our own in-house resources we got a large number of places throughout England where places could be improved in terms of safety, or accessibility or economic reasons.

We got 606 locations and the next stage was to prioritise these because what I was very keen to do was for them all to be subject to an analytically rigorous process so that each one wasn’t favoured against another one.

I plotted each location in ArcGIS, and obtained data variables – for example, nearby population, traffic flows, casualty, distance from public services – for each one. I assigned each variable a score from one to three

depending on its severity; and then calculated an aggregated score from each individual score. Finally, I ranked the locations from one to 606 based on the aggregated scores.

Q And how do you balance safety – it could be a dangerous but

little-used area – against a safe but busy one?That’s an interesting question. In terms of the safety, each of the values were weighted.

Daisy adds: We used data from the Times Cities fit for Cycling campaign so we could understand the demand, which could fill the data gap of somewhere where we don’t see a large amount of cycling but maybe they’re not cycling there because they feel they’re unsafe, so using cycling perception data is important.

Q So Bruce, explain how the GIS data was used?

Well, I couldn’t do the work without it because what GIS allowed me to do was to draw buffers around the possible locations. We used 2.5km buffers based on government guidance

INTERVIEW BY PAUL HUTTON

34

Daisy Smith and Bruce McDaniel

Highways England has a ring-fenced budget of £100m to make cycling safer on its network. But how do you defi ne the projects that will derive maximum benefi t? Smart Highways caught up with Tactical Analyst Bruce McDaniel and Daisy Smith, North West Regional Intelligence Team Leader to understand the project, and how clever use of mapping data made the difference


GIS a safer cycle ride



(which suggests that a 5km distance is a reasonable distance to cycle). The locations were dotted around the country and to get, for instance, an understanding of casualties, well you just couldn’t do that looking at a spreadsheet. You had to map each point so you could capture how many points were within each buffer.

Q What were the variables you looked at?

We had eight, including: nearby traffic flows; jobs within the buffer zone; casualties; population within the buffer zone but more than a mile away from public transport (a bus stop or railway station). These were scored according to how pressing they were, and these individual scores fed into an aggregated score for each location, which were then ranked.

Q How long did it take?The actual physical work of

clicking a mouse took about two weeks but there was a constant liaising with stakeholders to make sure we had the right data sets over the right time frame so there were discussions to be had about that. All these were talked about in depth.

Q Did you start with a blank sheet of paper knowing “this is what I

need to do, now how do I do it, what variables do I need, how big are the buffer zones etc?” I guess that work has now been done so others in local authorities, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or anywhere can take what you’ve done – the hard work – and put

Yes, the methods I’ve come up with are documented so people can do the same for their own requirements. The software we have in Highways England is Esri software, which is the only GIS software I have access to and the only software I needed, it did the job to give us a strong evidence base.

Q So once you’d done that, you obviously came up with a list of

priorities but what was the next step for you Daisy?We got suggested locations by liaising with our stakeholders and that’s what went into the GIS software, and then

once we’d used that to prioritise the locations then that became part of our list of schemes. We do some further assessments that suggested schemes are feasible and good value for money then we’ve put together a rolling programme of schemes for the next five years.

By using the mapping software we were able to share the data and information with stakeholders so we found that an easy process for data sharing rather than sending them a spreadsheet that they’d have to unpick.

Q Could you use similar methodology for other modes

of transport?I don’t see why not. As well as these initiatives benefitting cyclists they also benefit pedestrians so there’s a benefit there. We have also used ArcGIS for such tasks as assessing traffic flows around football matches for example in the run-up to and after matches to allow Highways England to manage resources for traffic; or for identifying flooding hotspots.

35


+ Cycling safety

For more

information, email

[email protected]


“ To get, for instance, an understanding of casualties, well you just couldn’t do that looking at a spreadsheet. You had to map each point so you could capture how many points were within each buffer ”

THREE SCHEMES UNDER WAY

M53 Junction 4 near Bebington on the Wirral – £0.47m. This junction is a barrier to cyclists travelling from Brimstage/Heswall to Bebington and Clatterbridge Hospital and current facilities are in a poor state of repair. The scheme will include shared cycle/footways; improvements to the existing route, and a direct access into the hospital site.

A38 Branston Junction near Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire – £0.46m.

This junction has poor pedestrian and cycle segregation facilities. This scheme will allow safe crossing of the busy A38,

local leisure facilities and nearby developments.

A12 in Lowestoft, Suffolk – £1.8m. A number of schemes to deliver a range of improvements to

in the Lowestoft area, including providing better links to the National Cycle Network Route 1 and provide a new route for communities in Gunton to the schools and amenities on the other side of the A12.

Before and after images of cycling improvements on the A5111-A52 Raynesway near Derby




ROADSIDE INFRASTRUCTURE

+ Forever Open Road

Coupled with this is the uncertainty of the impacts of disruptive technologies, such as automated driving,

the impact of 3D printing and additive manufacturing on logistics chains, drone deliveries and the impact of social media replacing face-to-face meetings, to name but a few.

Set against this backdrop, are limited construction and maintenance

WORDS BY MARTIN LAMB

36

Forever and

The European highway network represents a critical asset, which is facing considerable challenges; the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, congestion and traffi c loading beyond original design forecasts. Plus, as Martin Lamb explains, the fact that much of the motorway network across Europe is over 50 years old and many bridges are of a similar age and coming to the end of their predicted design life.


BACKGROUNDIn 2009, an idea was put forward by TRL that the business model of road construction, operation and maintenance was unlikely to be effective in the 21st century and that a radical overhaul was required.

Why with all the advances in material science do we construct roads in much the same way as we did a century ago?

Why with the advances in sensors, telecoms and IT do we have roads and transport infrastructure costing hundreds of millions, with fewer sensors than an average family car?

Why don’t we think about building roads and other highway components in controlled, factory conditions? Why not build roads that can be adaptable, for example where a lane can be removed and replaced with a tramway for example?

budgets. Could there be a different way to design, build, operate and maintain roads?

TRL thinks so, and has been working with a number of European partners within the Forum of European Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL) to develop ‘The Forever Open Road,’ which aims to tackle the challenges and embrace opportunities arising from existing and future technology.



Why not have roads that monitor their own condition, that are self-cleaning and self-repairing?

The Forever Open Road concept was born, and has since been developed with innovation themes and research needs identified; it consists of three elements:

The Adaptable Road - providing a quick and cost-effective method of constructing and maintaining roads, through prefabricated pavements, that are upgradeable, durable and capable of incorporating removable and changeable infrastructure. The Adaptable Element will support

the Automated and Resilient Elements.

The Automated Road - integrating roadside intelligence with ICT applications in the vehicle, enabling vehicle-to-infrastructure and operator communication. The communications technology will enable advance guidance and management systems, improving the reliability and efficiency of the network.

The Resilient Road - resilient to extreme weather events, and will mitigate the negative aspects of road construction and operation such as noise and air pollution. It will harvest

water for roadside planting and solar energy for domestic or highway use.

TECHNICAL APPROACHThe concept is unashamedly ambitious and challenges much accepted wisdom on highway design and construction, yet this is not simply a vanity project or a potential showcase of what could be achieved.

From the outset it was determined that the concept must be applicable to new and existing roads, whether local or motorway and must be cost-effective compared with existing roads, at least on a whole life cost basis, and must deliver long-term benefits to the European economy, environment and society. The aim is to take the best of today’s technology, and the best of what’s to come.

During 2010, TRL led a Scoping Team comprising members from

37

ever – a roadROADSIDE INFRASTRUCTURE

+ Forever Open Road

“ Why with all the advances in material science do we construct roads in much the same way as we did a century ago? ”




ROADside infrastructure

+ Forever Open Road

highway laboratories from France, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands and Denmark. Information was collected on existing, near future and medium/long-term technologies that could potentially be of use to the Forever Open Road. In adopting this approach it was decided that it would identify missing technologies and determine where improvements were required on initial stage technologies.

An early lesson for the team was the number of concepts aligned with key innovation themes, which were already in existence to some degree or another, such as prefabricated road pavements and road surfaces in the Netherlands, inductive vehicle charging in South Korea and Germany, harvesting of solar power in the USA and autonomous vehicle development.

In 2011, roadmaps for each of the three elements were developed, which identified individual research topics for development and a timeline for research, development, regulatory approval and market introduction against overall milestones of 2015, 2020 and 2025 for single technology introduction, sub-system proving trials and full system development respectively.

Pan-European endorsement for the Forever Open Road Programme came in mid 2011 when it was placed at the core of FEHRL’s 5th Strategic European Road Research Programme 2011 – 2016 (SERRP V). The three roadmaps and SERRP V have

been used to inform and influence national and European research calls, to ensure that future research funding and support is aimed at programmes such as this, rather than continue with the current approach to research, where incremental improvements are made in many

disparate areas, which at best has little strategic oversight, and at worst, the improvements in one area can be detrimental to another.

An early outcome of the Forever Open Road was the development of national programmes in Germany, France and Norway that are taking many of the individual research topics forward. A similar programme of research of the Federal Highways Administration in the USA has also been aligned.

From 2012 onwards, projects that contribute to the goals of the Forever Open Road have been collated on the Forever Open Road website, to act as the ‘building blocks’ of the overall concept. These have been identified by the core project team and put forward by outside parties.

More recently, a number of the projects identified have been the outcomes of national and European research which have explicit reference to the Forever Open Road that will develop and validate technology solutions over the next two-to-three years. Increasingly, the research proposals submitted by FEHRL member institutes to European programmes such as Horizon 2020 and CEDR will be specifically targeting the development of products or processes in support of the Forever Open Road.

Moving forward, there will be both a continuation of single technology trials, and updating of the roadmaps to reflect the development of the programme and reaching the initial 2015 milestone, but also larger scale demonstration projects of concepts and wider engagement with construction companies and technology provider, who will ultimately implement the concept.

FUTURE WORK FOCUSSome of the key research activities presently being investigated include:

Prefabricated Pavements, to consider the whole life costs and potential additional benefits that could be gained in terms of noise reducing properties, possibly involving a trial on a test site

38

Top: Modieslab prefabricated road and, above, a rollpave ‘Road on a Roll’ test section, both from the Netherlands




The ongoing development of automated vehicles including trials in the UK

The installation of in-road technology to enable dynamic powering of electric vehicles whilst driving to reduce range anxiety and extend electrification to heavy vehicles

Harvesting of energy from transport infrastructure to power lighting, roadside communities or potentially electric vehicles

Resilient infrastructure to consider the potential future effects of climate change, such as increasing storm frequencies and intensities, and also extreme heat

Self-Monitoring Technologies, to include self-cleaning and self-repairing technologies

Determining how the Forever Open Road can improve the safety of road users

BENEFITS No apologies are made for the ambition and scope of the project. Its

aim is to revolutionise transport and as such is necessarily bold, however the benefits are equally significant...

Economic benefits from reduced congestion, improved journey time reliability, and lower whole cost construction

Societal benefits from the reduction of accidents through self-explaining roads and automated vehicle operation; increased road worker safety through reduced maintenance requirements and off-site construction

Environmental Benefits from a reduction in congestion and associated pollution, lower noise, use of low carbon materials, capture of renewable energy and rainwater.

The initial costs of the Forever Open Road are likely to be significant, not least due to all new technologies having initial higher costs for early adopters, but with lower whole-life costs, standardisation of components to develop competition, it is expected that the costs will reduce.

It is also worth bearing in mind the cost that European society pays currently; daily congestion is estimated to cause an economic loss the equivalent to 1% of European GDP or roughly €200 billion each year. There were 1,713 road deaths in the UK alone in 2013 according to official government figures, which apart from the human suffering result in significant costs due to investigation, court cases, insurance and loss of production. Many more will be seriously injured, potentially incurring lifetime medical attention.

The Forever Open Road is presented as a solution to many of the pressures faced by the highways communities in the 21st century.

It has developed from a concept five years ago to a programme which has technology trials and demonstration projects on the ground now.

It has also been recognised that many of the problems faced by road administrations are shared with other modes, and a cross-modal programme named FORx4 (Forever Open Road, Rail, River and Runway) has been initiated focussing on shared domains of infrastructure, technology, governance and customers, aiming towards seamless cross-modal transport.

39

ROADside infrastructure

+ Forever open road

“ The initial costs of the Forever Open Road are likely to be signifi cant… but with lower whole-life costs, standardisation of components to develop competition, it is expected that the costs will reduce ”

An illustration of a solar roadways panel and LED lighting from the USA

“ The concept is unashamedly ambitious and challenges much accepted wisdom on highway design and construction ”

MARTIN LAMB is Business

Development

Manager, TRL

[email protected]






+ Air quality case study

ir pollution in cities as a result of road traffic is becoming big news across the world, not least in the UK where

the Supreme Court has recently ruled in favour of ClientEarth’s case against the UK Government for not acting on toxic Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) level breaches on numerous occasions and across 16 cities.

Other toxic atmospheric pollutants frequently cited include Nitric Oxide (NO), often referred to with its ‘twin’ NO2 jointly as NOx emissions. NO is degraded to NO2 in the air and NO measurement is therefore often used as a guide to total NOx levels. Carbon

AMonoxide (CO) and the particles of soot emitted by diesel engines, with tyre wear and other dust, are other potential problems.

The concentration in air of NOx and CO is measured by instrumentation, essentially similar to that used for factory chimney emission measurements, and high-accuracy, high-reliability instrumentation is essential to monitoring pollutant levels.

TUNNEL VISIONOf course, air pollution is spread unevenly, especially in cities, and locations where pollution can quickly reach critical levels include road

tunnels and the areas around the entrances and air extraction shafts to the tunnels.

Recent research in New Zealand and Australia has shown that pollutant amounts for road tunnels over 1 km in length could be anything between 10 and 1,000 times that of urban roads outside, posing problems to drivers and especially through multiple exposure, to tunnel operatives; such research underlines the need for improved tunnel emissions safety measures internationally.

Air in a tunnel is not static and, as well as the flow of air and turbulence caused by traffic, the tunnel

WORDS BY JON SLATER

40

Assessing the impact of new pollution monitoring technology on tunnel traffi c and safety management

Put in a SICKy


Accessing infrastructure in tunnels can be diffi cult and leadto closures so multi-use devices are rightly sought after



ventilation/extraction used in all but the shortest stretches is designed to reduce pollution concentrations in the interior. Ventilation is one of a raft of road tunnel safety measures and is a significant part of the EU Road Tunnel Safety Recommendations Consultation Draft of 2007 as well as the Directive of 2004/5.

Scrubbing of tunnel air to remove pollutants, especially particles, is a fairly new approach being introduced on new tunnel projects such as the Calle 30 tunnels on Madrid’s ring road.

LIMITING POLLUTION AND ENERGYNecessary to pull in fresh air at rates to match the tunnel conditions, ventilation/extraction levels must also be controlled to limit energy expenditure. The fan speeds are varied in response to instrumentation that measures the concentration of key pollutants, integrated with the tunnel traffic management Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The level warnings from instrumentation also trigger the flashing red light seen at tunnel entrances that alerts drivers to potential atmospheric problems.

For instrumentation, just as with equipment such as lighting and air handling, tunnels are tough environments. They can be subject to extreme hot and cold temperatures and dust and dirt pose significant problems for instruments that have to be exposed to the atmosphere in order to be able to measure it. Fog can be a significant problem, especially.

Additionally, tunnels are tough on the personnel that service and monitor instrumentation to ensure it is working reliably, both as they are exposed to the atmosphere and have to service the instruments in the poor environment even though the tunnel might be closed to traffic.

While this means that instruments should be robust enough to withstand conditions and need attention only infrequently, it is also a significant advantage if one instrument can measure several parameters, and thus limit the time spent on servicing or replacing equipment.

The safety of vehicle drivers and tunnel staff is paramount and needs to be maintained under adverse conditions; these include poor visibility leading to higher accident risk, and CO and NO build-up causing drowsiness and illness, as well as possible effects on long term health.

EXPERIENCE TELLSSICK’s long experience with tunnel and traffic monitoring and management systems, including fire and hot spot detection on moving vehicles, has guided its design approach with perhaps today’s leading tunnel environment monitor. Its unique technology means it is the only sensor currently that combines scattered light measurement with electrochemical cells in one compact housing. The sensor combines visibility (for particles), and measurement of carbon monoxide and nitric oxide (CO/NO) in one sensor and meets SIL 1 safety levels.

Tunnel operators need to anticipate dangerous pollution build-up, and implement mitigation

measures such as improved ventilation or restriction of entry. Called the VISIC100SF, the sensor’s high reliability and consistency provide tunnel operators and owners with early detection of unsafe visibility and pollution conditions inside road and rail tunnels.

The sensor can even operate reliably in the challenging conditions which occur in mountainous regions and provide possible advance warning of situations that indicate a fire, through smoke particle and CO monitoring.

The VISIC100SF is the only tunnel sensor of its type to combine scattered light visibility measurements, with a range of up to 15km, with CO detection of 0 – 300ppm and NO detection of 0 – 100ppm.

The rugged stainless steel housing has an environmental protection rating of IP6K9K, and so is able to withstand harsh tunnel conditions including tunnel washing procedures, to ensure maximum availability.

Operating range is -200C to +550C and an optional heating element ensures resistance to foggy conditions; mounting and set up is easy with no requirement for alignment, thus facilitating instant operation once installed, and maintenance requirements are low.

With a response time of 60 seconds or less, it responds rapidly to changing conditions. Standards conformed to include ASTRA

41



“ The sensor’s high reliability and consistency provide tunnel operators and owners with early detection of unsafe visibility and pollution conditions inside road and rail tunnels ”

Pollution in tunnels can be up to 1,000 times greater than on urban roads





“Guideline - Ventilation of Road Tunnels” (2008); RABT 2006; RVS 09.02.22; EN 50545; EN 61508 (SIL 1) and many others.

COMMUNICATIONS KEY TO MANAGEMENTTunnel supervisory control systems are key to modern tunnel management and use local area network communications to ensure rapid acquisition of information for monitoring and sending signals to operate equipment from ventilation to lighting and sprinkler systems. Data outputs of the VISIC100SF include four analogue and three digital channels and communications protocols, via the RS485 connector, with Modbus RTU and PROFIBUS DP options to integrate with modern tunnel SCADA systems via the tunnel adapter device.

SICK’s further commitments to tunnel and traffic safety also include the Hot Spot Detector. This instrument is based on the SICK LMS511 laser sensor with the TIC 102 profiling system, and integrated with

thermal imaging cameras, to detect potentially dangerous situations in free-flow traffic so a suspect vehicle can be diverted before entering the tunnel. This proved its potential within a week of its first installation

in Austria in May 2013, where an overheating brake on a truck was picked up at the Karawanks Tunnel; on inspection, the truck also had two other cracked discs and was banned from any driving.

Reliable, high performance instrumentation is also key to the general traffic management and monitoring required at the entrance to tunnels where vehicle yards, tolls and other facilities are congregated. Equipment available for detection and control for highway and tunnel transport includes traffic classification and data collection (the new TIC102 unit), dust and smoke visibility and composition analysers, laser motion, positioning and distance detection.

JON SLATER is

SICK UK’s traffi c

management

specialist

[email protected]

“ It is… a signifi cant advantage if one instrument can measure several parameters, and thus limit the time spent on servicing or replacing equipment”

SICK’s VISIC100SF Unit

http://www.flir.com/traffic

http://www.sick.co.uk


emember the days when installation of equipment meant installing cabinets behind barriers, up

embankments or in other places safely clear of the carriageway? Such installations were expensive,

were occasions where the overall hassle meant people just decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

The development of passively safe products are at the forefront of our industry to make roads safer and to save money. They are installed on the roadside but are crash-resistant so if they are hit by a vehicle the cabinet comes away from its ground foundation while the wiring connecting components inside to a network is simply unplugged. This means

that “safe” place to put it, meaning

of around £20,000.Ritherdon’s passively safe

cabinet was developed through

testing carried out at TRL. The crash tests were carried out at two speeds, 35km/h and 100km/h and were given

BS EN 12767. With the passively safe cabinet’s unique base, the cabinet when impacted shears off and all electrical cables are isolated immediately. This is in line the National Annex to BS EN12767 which

WORDS BY KATIE BROWN

43


+ Case study

Placing ITS solutions at the roadside can be rejected because of the cost of installing the equipment. However a new solution makes it easier to place, and protect expensive equipment

KATIE BROWN is a manager at

Ritherdon

[email protected]

ritherdon.co.uk


Saving lives & costs

“ This means that there is now no need to fi nd that “safe” place to put it, meaning fi nancial savings – when ongoing maintenance is taken into account – of around £20,000 ”

A passive safety cabinet in situ

R

states that any electrical supply is isolated in the event of an impact to prevent the apparatus becoming electrically live.

Passively safe furniture is proving exceptionally safe with almost no recorded severe injuries in vehicle impacts.

The Ritherdon Passively Safe Cabinet is a high quality cabinet made from stainless steel which are weather proof.

The photograph clearly shows the passively safe cabinet by the roadside with no barrier. This is installed on the A57 near Stranraer.



http://www.ritherdon.co.uk


+ Case study

AMS is a low-risk, high added-value solution and meets all Cornwall’s operational

requirements and aspirations and is delivered over the Internet from a Government security approved hosted environment.

The Council uses the system as a tool to deliver across-the-board savings and improve communication – it interfaces with all street equipment through a resource manager platform whilst an independently-developed App provides access to a wide range of information to both the public and council employees, using xml feeds.

The IAMS software has been designed to operate on a wide

range of devices, from tablets such as IPads to Windows PCs. It is a logical, intuitive, effective, efficient, user-friendly and enjoyable system, affording administrators full control over Assets.

The Cornwall IAMS Carbon Reduction Commitment facility allows monitoring of electrical consumption, asset valuation and age reports, performance indicators of works undertaken and performance of equipment installed on site.

Cornwall Council have used this framework, in conjunction with a remote monitoring interface within the IAMS Lighting Management System, to implement part night switching and dimming of its street lights as well as manage its integrated

technologies maintenance contract. The LMS incorporates the

requirements of BSCP 520 regarding roadside electrical assets and the

reporting suite easily facilitates reports on performance of light scouts and other inspections, performance of fault repair reports, plus TR22 and asset managing reporting.

The Intelligent Transport Module included within LMS also

allows Cornwall Council to include work associated with roadside electrical assets, such as traffic signals, traffic counters, CCTV, ANPR, VMS car park equipment and signs and weather stations.

“The Invest to Save street lighting project, which began back 2009, has allowed us to significantly cut emissions and become a pioneer in street lighting management” explains Cornwall’s Transport and Technology Commissioning Manager, Glyn Williams.

The three year project has seen the replacement of over 52,000 street lighting units throughout the County, with the then new lamp technology and control system.

“The approach has enabled the council to vary its operating light levels and switch the profiles from full

The A9 info dedicated website

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 244 t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

WORDS BY JON DAY

Cornwall in control

Cornwall Council has reduced its carbon footprint by three-fi fths and delivered an estimated £54m saving on the cost of running 52,000 street lights in the County following the introduction of a comprehensive asset management solution. The savings, which will be realised over the next 25 years, have been achieved working in partnership with WDM, using its Integrated Asset Management System (IAMS)

ICornwall Council uses IAMS to manage inspection and maintenance work (above) and (inset) lighting inventory is collected and managed on-site



+ Case study

on, to a dimmed state, dependant on the highway hierarchy, traffic usage and time of the night,” he said.

“It has allowed us to realise significant savings with the reduced consumption without having to turn any lights off. In addition, the new technology allows us to monitor the exact energy consumption of the units and alter the profiles at the flick of a switch, with the flexible ability to change overnight at no extra cost”.

As a result the overall connected load of the street lighting in Cornwall has been reduced by 40 per cent (2,386kW) translating into an annual energy consumption reduction year on year has been reduced from 19.4KWh to just 12.3KWh – a saving of a 36 per cent and in terms of carbon reduction 3,843 tCO2 p.a.

The success and impact of the WDM® IAMS isn’t restricted to lighting

JON DAY is a senior

manager at WDM

Ltd, a UK-based

worldwide highway

asset management

specialist.

[email protected]

“ The approach has enabled the council to vary its operating light levels and switch the profi les from full on, to a dimmed state, dependant on the highway hierarchy, traffi c usage and time of the night ”

Intelligent Mobility:smarter together

people, data and goods

management and the system’s comprehensive range of management modules has revolutionised the way the Council interacts and communicates with the public, as well as helping it manage its assets more efficiently and effectively.

The IAMS’ Customer Services module, integrated with the Council’s App, has streamlined the interaction of public and service requests with simple applications, such as on-line fault reporting, allowing the public to self-service requests and check on progress.

The WDM® inspection, defect and works ordering system is also completely integrated within the process and delivered using mobile technology to allow Council staff to receive, assign, update and close an enquiry.

The Council has also improved its

service to the public in respect of public liability claims through the introduction of a self-serve function, which reduces the amount of time spent processing a claim and streamlines the enquiry process.

Ian Cadwallader, WDM®‘s Software Development Manager, says IAMS provides Cornwall with a powerful management tool.

“IAMS continues to prove itself to be a cost-effective approach to asset management. The savings achieved in running the street lights in Cornwall over the next quarter of a century will deliver a healthy ROI as well as give the Council total control of its operations.

“With local authority budgets increasingly under pressure, it’s important for the Council to be able to almost micro-manage its assets, improve efficiencies and reduce expenditure,” he said.

“Our management system has also helped Cornwall improve communications right across the board, both with the public and with its own employees.”


http://www.imtech.uk.com


CONNECTED VEHICLES

+ Cyber security

s a supplier of ITS solutions, tendering is part of our normal day

to day activities. Almost every tender document asks that we supply details of our insurances, ISO9001 quality system, ISO14001 environmental management and our health and safety system plus method statements etc as part of the qualification process before the tender response is even evaluated.

However we are yet to be formally asked in a tender process if we are

AISO27001:2013 Information

Security Management System accredited; and yet the risks associated with Information Security can be at least as significant and potentially even more than those associated

with quality or the environment.ISO27001:2013 is the

international Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard. Failure of a company’s ISMS system can be both extremely costly and have disastrous reputational consequences. The

Health and Safety Executive has made estimates of between £30,000 and £2 million as the cost for a failure in a company’s management of Health and Safety, which equates closely to the estimate made by Grant Thornton in their FD Intelligence report (September 2013) of between £160,000 and £1.7 million for a ISMS failure. However the consequences of ISMS breach can expand significantly. In April 2013 the Syrian Electronic Army managed to beach the Associated Press Twitter feed and post “an explosion has happened at the White House and President Obama had been injured.”

WORDS BY NICK HEWITSON

46

Cyber security is a burning issue for Smart CCTV’s founder, and here he asks if cyber security is the Achilles heel of ITS, looks at the risks and at a potential tool to manage those risks.

Shutting the cyber door




This caused the Standard and Poors stock market index to drop $136 billion in about 2 minutes.

RISKY BUSINESSSo what are the risks in Intelligent Traffic Systems? Think of the Italian Job film, how did Michael Caine’s team steal the gold? They brought the city to grid lock by disabling the traffic signal and CCTV systems. Imagine the chaos in London or Manchester if the UTMC system turned every traffic light on to a permanent green signal. Can you imagine the television news reports if the Mayor of London was interrogated by the House of Commons Transport Select Committee due to the economic loss and social consequences of a major systemic failure at Transport for London due to poor information security management practices?

The dawning of an age of connected and driverless vehicles, which not only communicate from vehicle to vehicle but also communicate with the fixed highway infrastructure, has the potential create significant problems by, for example, delivering false data into the traffic management systems. By their nature vehicles, especially privately-owned vehicles are likely not be managed from an IT security standpoint, after

all some of them are not even serviced regularly. They therefore offer a potential “backdoor” into ITS systems, which we as an industry need to recognise and manage.

The potential consequences to both the economy and to people’s day to day lives from a failure of a major ITS system would bring our industry under an unwanted spotlight and we should therefore be looking for ways to minimise the risks of this happening.

THE NEW BATTLEFIELDEconomic warfare is becoming a proxy for real shooting type wars, the insertion of a computer virus into the Iranian nuclear centrifuges by an outside intelligence agency, causing their destruction is well known. Part of the Iranian state now responds by attacking foreign governments’, military and industrial infrastructure and their prominent agencies, for example they successfully breached the Saudi Aramco’s IT network and

destroyed around 75 per cent of their PC infrastructure. Why should we believe that Highways England, Network Rail or Traffic Wales will be ignored by similar groups where the potential to bring significant economic harm the country is clearly obvious? In addition to state sponsored groups, there are third party groups of hackers who have their own agendas and who have both the skills and the resources to mount significant IT attacks.

We should be aware that this is already happening. At Smart CCTV we have already identified servers that appear to be in the Middle East, China and Russia (it is not easy to be certain of the real geographical location) trying to interrogate our ITS systems. Fortunately we have implemented an information security management system and have been able to ensure that no useful information has been lost.

The UK Government has identified that one of the greatest risks to its IT security is through the supply chain. As organisations like Highways England look to deliver

47

CONNECTED VEHICLES

+ Cyber security

“ We are yet to be formally asked in a tender process if we are Information Security Management System accredited; and yet the risks associated can be potentially even more than those associated with quality or the environment”

“ Think of the Italian Job fi lm, how did Michael Caine’s team steal the gold? They brought the city to grid lock by disabling the traffi c signal and CCTV systems ”

Hack attacks: imagine the chaos if city lights were turned permanently green – while Smart CCTV has already identifi ed overseas servers interrogating its IT systems



CONNECTED VEHICLES

+ Cyber security

more for less money, the need for integrating accounting systems, project management tools and document registries throughout the supply chain is growing; the risks of problems within the supply chain are therefore increasing rather than decreasing. This must make the need for an ISMS more and more relevant to our industry.

There are, of course, a number of standards which deal with Information Security issues but they tend to be specific to key industries, like the CBEST, standard promoted by the Bank of England for financial institutions and List X accreditation managed by the MOD for military suppliers.

RISK REDUCTIONSo what is ISMS and specifically ISO27001? Like ISO9001 and ISO14001 it is a set of policies and procedures which cover best practice, with the aim of reducing the risks of data breaches and mitigating the effects if such an event happens. They include not only the logical (IT) security of the systems but also their physical security, the issues around the human element of the system and the legal framework which needs to be operated within.

It covers 12 main areas: risk assessment, security policy, the organisation of information security, asset management, HR, physical and environmental security, access control, operational and incident management, the acquisition, maintenance and disposal of IT equipment and business continuity.

Like similar standards the requirements are not rocket science but good, well thought through business management tools; which because they are able to be audited against a standard allows suppliers to show that they have developed robust solutions. Like ISO9001 and ISO14001, compliance with the standard can be audited by third party organisations like the BSI group, which provides a consistent level of delivery.

Why then is ISO27001 not a question near the top of every ITS tender request? The standard has been around for a number of years, the previous version was written in 2005, but take up has been slow. This is probably partly historical as the major emphasis in project

delivery has been civil engineering-based rather than technology-based.

Also there has not yet been an “Italian Job” event where the consequences of a failure have been obvious, but surely we should, as an industry, be proactive in identifying potential problems before they occur. The ability for suppliers to provide a qualified third party audited system relieves the end customer of a large amount of effort to determine if the supplier has an appropriate management system in place.

It is therefore very likely that having ISO27001 will become a key requirement for the tendering of ITS solutions in the near future as our industry becomes more embedded in providing the mobility of goods and people that a successful economy requires.

In a forthcoming article I will look at how Smart CCTV implemented a solution and the issues which need to be thought about in achieving compliance with the international standard.

“ Like similar standards the requirements are not rocket science but good, well thought through business management tools ”


NICK HEWITSON is

owner of Smart CCTV

Ltd and Honorary

Secretary of the ITS

(UK) Security Interest

Group

[email protected]

48 t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

ISMS aims to reduce the risks and effects of serious data breaches



Scattered light for visibility: VISIC100SF measures accurately and reliably, is simple to install, compact

Operational safety with SIL1, IP 6K9K. This sensor is just getting started where others leave off, with fog correction.

in a single compact device. Perfectly combined and always up-to-date. We think that’s intelligent. www.sick.com/visic100sf

VISIC100SF: MODERNISES MEASUREMENT PERFORMANCE FOR TUNNEL AIR QUALITY

The world’s most accurate and reliable multi-lane radar sensor.SmartSensor HD

Contact your dealer to request a DEMOwww.wavetronix.com/sh1501

http://www.wavetronix.com/sh1501

http://www.sick.com/visic100sf


CONNECTED VEHICLES

+ Opinion

he recent media interest in self-driving cars has been interesting in raising public awareness

of possibilities and showing what we in “ITS” do – whatever ITS actually means in these “mobility” days. It has also highlighted data, organisational and business issues that will impact deployment and the many challenges along the way.

As an example, recently there have been reports of accidents with self-driving vehicles under test in the US, with other drivers of “legacy” cars. I would like to see details of this before speculating any further, but a real area of concern for me is the interaction between self-driving and human driven vehicles.

I have started a PhD exploring it with Southampton University, looking at how the age old problem of two lanes merging into one might work in the real world with a lot of self-driving vehicles – or more importantly, just a few of them. You will be all too familiar with the case when someone pushes in right at the last minute, as it is so so very important they get there before

Tyou and must push their car to the front of the queue. With a self driving car not having that driver arrogance, will it give way every time and be the object of scorn, or can clever algorithms overcome this? And if two self-driving cars need to merge into the one lane, which one moves first? The “Mexican stand-off” we often get at mini roundabouts (no mate – after you!) will need some complex testing work too. Self-driving cars would be so easy, if it was not for humans also driving cars...

However, the downside of all this interest is that the far shorter-term opportunities from connected vehicles are being forgotten, as the hype of self-driving suggests they are not needed. Getting data to and from vehicles and the roadside is starting to happen, not just in pilots and trials but for real. From 2017 newly type approved vehicles in the EU will have eCall – a system that reports the location of the vehicle if its

airbag deploys. In the UK the business case for this isn’t strong – where it’s needed most in very rural areas there is no mobile phone coverage – but vehicles will have the system nonetheless and data will come from them in the UK. How roads authorities in the UK can use this data has not really been thought about yet.

V2I IN REAL TIMEFor many years roads operators have used GPS and now mobile phone data to measure journey times and now origins and destinations. But imagine if we could also get data from within the guts of the vehicles and the many sensors a vehicle needs. What if we got road and air temperature for winter maintenance route planning, ABS activation to show where the road friction is poor, steering angle and suspension movement to show potholes and a load more use cases. These are new data we can use to better manage the asset, not simply for driver information and measuring congestion. Various estimates suggest a £10-£20m saving from better winter maintenance is clearly possible in the UK from putting salt only where

WORDS BY ANDY GRAHAM

50

The EU’s eCall reports the location of vehicles involved in accidents

Andy Graham is one of the UK’s leading ITS experts. He is currently undertaking a PhD in the connected vehicle technology fi eld and here writes a personal view of the current situation and its possibilities


“ Current BMWs have more lines of cosensors than the Eurofi ghter. Ev

has ABS, traction contr

So whatever happened to connected vehicles?



needed. Can data from vehicles help this saving?

This technology is not sci-fi. Current BMWs have more lines of computer code and more sensors than the Eurofighter. Even my 12-year-old Audi has ABS, traction control and a frost sensor, and through a £20 device, I can get data from it onto my phone and pretend I am Jenson Button looking at telemetry. The new Mercedes S class has a camera to adjust its suspension at potholes. Ha-ha you say – top of the range tech but it will never get into the Ford people carrier! Well actually, the S class has traditionally been the pioneer of tech – it was the first with ABS, aircon, sat nav and electric windows and we now get these on every car.

And by the way, the new Ford S max has a speed camera and speed limit sign sensor that can control the speed of the vehicle. So if you want a survey of your road signs, Ford is a new data source...

HIGHLIGHTING HAZARDSWe can use data from vehicles too for queue warning between vehicles, for example around blind bends. And to warn of ice spots and loose animals. We start to be able to warn drivers of hazards on all roads, not just main roads and motorways where we can fit VMS.

And we can put data into vehicles too. I have mentioned the speed limits

above, but that is an indirect approach. Highways England can now provide dynamic speed limit information for sat nav suppliers – so the satnav will not say 50mph if the limit is now 40mph. Previously this was an irritation, but when you drive from say Gatwick to Birmingham by 2017 every bit of your trip will have a dynamic speed limit. Keeping changing will be a pain. Also, we can send parking information into vehicles – making yellow lines available when they do not need to be yellow to allow more parking (why block parking around schools during holidays?)

I am not saying “rip out your ANPR” but I am saying maybe we don’t need to keep adding much more before vehicle data can be used. In addition, why do we have kit with a 30-year design life when it may be as useful in 2045 as a 1985 VHS recorder is now – let alone Betamax. This requires a mindset change from owning an asset (and the cost needed to manage it) to buying a service. This is happening in mainstream IT and now in traffic control but is taking time

All of this connectivity is vital for self-driving cars and for the new “mobility Services” emerging - car clubs and vehicle hire where you leave the vehicle where you want, as long as it is a legal place. Live data into vehicles will show that a potential parking spot isn’t allowed by a Traffic Regulation Order, or banned today as Arsenal are playing at home. Self-driving cars will fall into disrepute unless they get this sort of bread and butter data from roads people – video sensing a sign once a year is not enough if there is a temporary ban. Moreover, when a self-driving vehicle makes a banned turn, who gets the ticket - “wasn’t me officer – was the car”.

LEADING A HORSE TO WATER…But there is a real challenge. The day job. Only the largest of authorities have the time and people to worry about these future issues. Falling budgets, potholes and congestion are problems today and what elected official is worrying about self-driving cars? Government is supporting pilots in go-ahead large places like Bristol and Greenwich, but there are more than 100 other highway authorities. When

I ask local authorities about using in vehicle data – and supplying it – there is a great appetite and interest but then the “how do we do it?” question emerges and worries emerge.

Techie people use phrases like “big data”, “ virtual marketplace” and “internet of things” but don’t have to deal with IT and procurement departments and having no money to keep today’s systems going, let alone tomorrow’s. In addition, data volumes and complexity from vehicles will be huge. Even 1 million vehicles – just three per cent of those on the roads and 6 months’ new sales that give data once a km is 16 billion data items per measurement a year for the UK – it’s a “big data” problem indeed.

So a roads authority will want that firehose-size pipe of raw data distilled down to a dribble of really useful intelligence – for example “there’s a pothole emerging at GPS location XYX, it’s 57mm deep and it’s getting worse by two per cent per day. Five per cent of vehicles swerve to avoid it”.

So here’s an idea. We need a “datastore” where both vehicle-sourced data and Local Authority data for vehicles can be accessed securely, and where much of the geographic location, pre-processing, filtering and analysis of raw data is done to make it useful in the real world. London already has a data store which has raw data and many people use it, but we need one for places that will not have such huge interest and market potential. Whether this is government-provided via open.gov.uk, government-funded or a fully private initiative (or bunch of loosely combined but not duplicating services) I simply do not know, but it needs to be done. It would cost a fraction of the benefits expected from self-driving cars and will be a necessary step to them. It would mean a one-stop shop for vehicle makers/service providers to get and receive data, and reduce overheads on local authorities from multiple requests for even more data.

So if you are interested in a “datastoreforplacesthatarenthuge” idea, please get in touch. I have a cunning plan but need to see if it works in the real world. And by the way, it’s not my idea… the Netherlands are doing it already. Sensible folk.

51

CONNECTED VEHICLES

+ Opinion

ANDY GRAHAM is

the owner of White

Willow Consulting

and one of Britain’s

leading ITS experts

[email protected]


f computer code and more r Even my 12-year-old Audi ontrol and a frost sensor ”

“ The far shorter-term oppor-tunities from connected vehicles are being forgotten as the hype of self-driving suggests they are not needed ”




EVENTS

+ JCT Traffi c Signals Symposium

ho would have thought when we planned the first Symposium in 1996 in Nottingham that

it would grow into what it has now become? Over the years numbers have grown so that the Symposium now regularly attracts over 200 delegates and we’ve also added an exhibition of around 30 traffic signals-focussed exhibitors along the way. Despite this, the aim of the Symposium is still the same - to bring together anyone and everyone involved in the traffic signals industry to talk signals for two days.

The Symposium was originally the idea of Brian Simmonite – the founder of JCT. At the time Brian had being teaching traffic signal design courses for a number of years and frequently received comments from delegates

W

Specialists from across the industry will gather at Warwick University again in September for the 20th annual traffi c signals symposium

52

The Symposium offers features an exhibition (above), many interesting sessions (right, top), and an excellent chance to network (right, bottom)

JCT’s 20th symposium


that as well as finding the courses useful they had also found informal discussion of traffic signal issues and sharing ideas with other delegates at breaks and in the evenings to be very useful. A number of delegates on the Advanced Signal Design course also commented as this was the last of a series of courses they had attended they would miss the opportunity to simply talk signals with colleagues from different organisations and could there not be a special ‘course’ which had the simple objective of allowing delegates to present and swap ideas and generally keep up to speed with developments in the industry. It was from these ideas that the Symposium was born. It has always been a two-day event as this has proved to be optimal in terms of balancing travel time and attendance cost. The overnight stay

also provides useful opportunities for networking with colleagues over dinner.

This year the Symposium will once again be hosted by the University of Warwick on the 17th and 18th September. We have had very good symposia at Warwick over the last few years and received excellent feedback from delegates and exhibitors and we are hoping to deliver another first class event this year. Having a quality lecture theatre, exhibition space, restaurants and accommodation all in one compact location helps us make the most out of the Symposium, maximising time for delegates to network.

The tried and tested format remains the same with a good mix of speakers presenting papers, a tightly focussed exhibition and good networking opportunities at the gala dinner.

We have already had a number of

WORDS BY PAUL MOORE

PAUL MOORE is

a Director at JCT

Consultancy

[email protected]

jctconsultancy.co.uk/symposium



http://www.jctconsultancy.co.uk

smartHIGHWAYS Vol 3 No 2 51t @SmartHighwaysM | www.smarthighways.net

JCT has been at the forefront of traffic engineeringtraining for over 20 years. We offer a range of coursesin traffic signal design and junction modelling, includingLinSig & Transyt. Courses are constantly updated toreflect latest best practice & releases, delivered inlecture and computer workshop formats as appropriate.

Transport Planning for Developments is a brand new 2-day course for 2015, jointly presented with LocalTransport Projects, suitable for anyone new or recent inthe Transport Planning environment, Traffic Engineersbroadening their experience,or responsible managers.

LONDON START DATE

Introduction to Traffic Signals (2 days)........... 16th JunLinSig3 Junction ModellingComputer Workshop (2 days) ...................18th Jun

Transport Planning for Developments...NEW!....8th OctLinSig3 Junction Modelling Comp. Workshop... 8th OctLinSig3 Advanced Features & NetworksComputer Workshop (2 days)................... 13th Oct

Signalled Roundabout Design using LinSig3... 15th Oct

LINCOLN *DISCOUNTED SUMMER SCHOOL**Essentials of Traffic Signals for Modellers*.....6th Jul*LinSig3 Junction Modelling ComputerComputer Workshop (2 days)*.................. 7th Jul

*LinSig3 Advanced Features & NetworksComputer Workshop (2 days)*.................. 9th Jul

TR2500 Specifications Course..................... 3rd NovAdvanced Traffic Signal Design (3 days) ........4th NovChecking LinSig/Arcady/Picady/TransytModels (2 days)......................................17th Nov

MAIDSTONE, KENT

Introduction to Traffic Signals (2 days)........... 6th Oct

JCT TRAFFIC SIGNALS SYMPOSIUM& EXHIBITION - CALL FOR PAPERS!WARWICK UNIVERSITY 17-18 SEPT

The UK's best Conference & Exhibition event for trafficsignals, now in it's 20th year! The renowned Exhibitionalways contains over 30 of all the key manufacturers.

EXHIBITORS include AGD, Aldridge, CA Traffic, FLIR,Clearview, Case Communications, Highways, IDT, IHE,JCT, Motus, NAL, NOW Wireless, Imtech Traffic & Infra,Pike, Radix, Ritherdon, RTEM, Sapa Pole, Siemens, SRL,Swarco, TEC, TDC, telent, VMS, Vysionics & Westcotec.

CALL FOR PAPERS! Speakers qualify for free entry onthe day of presentation and papers are often publishedin the industry press. Please submit a brief synopsis [email protected] or call us to discuss.Competition to present is always fierce so don't delay.

Traffic Engineering& Signal DesignTraining Courses

& Events

JCT Consultancy LtdLinSig House, Deepdale Enterprise Park,

Nettleham, Lincoln LN2 2LLTel: 01522 751010 Web: www.jctconsultancy.co.ukFax: 01522 751188 Email: [email protected]

paper submissions and are aware of many more in the pipeline but we are still looking for contributors. Papers are one of the components which make the symposium work and it amazes me every year what a diverse and interesting selection we get. Last year we had everything from Open Standards for Traffic Signals to reduced mobility of Pedestrian Crossings to Advances in Vehicle and Pedestrian detection technologies. If anyone is thinking of submitting a paper I would encourage them to send a synopsis to us soon as competition for places will inevitably hot up shortly.

We are also pleased that a significant number of exhibitors plan on coming back this year and delighted to see some new companies joining the ranks. Many

of the exhibitors are also providing generous sponsorship again this year, this really helps us keep the attendance price down and deliver a quality event. There will as usual be an evening meal on Wednesday night in the on campus pub and on Thursday there is a drinks reception followed by the gala dinner.

Preceding the Symposium on Wednesday the 16th September is as usual the free to attend MOVA user group. This has become a very popular event over the years and presents a unique opportunity for MOVA users and suppliers to share best practice and influence developments in the software. We are very happy to facilitate the event for free as it complements our symposium very well with many people attending both events.

“ Having a quality lecture theatre, exhibition space, restaurants and accommodation all in one compact location helps us make the most out of the Symposium ”


http://www.jctconsultancy.co.uk




EVENTS

+ Highways Magazine Excellence Awards

mart Highways is proud to be associated with the awards, not only because it is an event which is

growing and developing each year, but because it focuses everyone’s mind on being the best that they can be. Striving for excellence and embracing best practice can only help improve the extensive highways system which keeps the millions of vehicles flowing throughout Britain on a daily basis.

HMEP and ITS UK are also keen supporters of the awards. They both champion growing areas of the industry; efficiency and new technology. This is why categories have been introduced in both these

SAfter Jacobs won the fi rst ever ITS (UK) Award for Best Use of New Technology at last year’s Highways Magazine Excellence Awards in London, it’s time for you to get your entry in for this year’s event

54

Time to enter


areas in the past two years.This year alone has seen major

changes on our roads to help with safety and congestion. We have the driverless vehicle trials, cycle safety scehemes and encouragement of innovation with Highways England’s longer-term budget capabilities.

There will be many more schemes and products around which have made a significant improvement to our roads this year and so please enter them into the awards. Getting deserved recognition boosts the morale of your team as they realise their hard work and effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. The deadline is June 26th and so visit the website now for full details and the online entry form – www.hmea.co.uk.

WORDS BY JAN GRAY

JAN GRAY is Events

Manager of the

Highways Magazine

Excellence Awards

[email protected]






EVENTS

+ Highways Magazine Excellence Awards

All shortlisted entries benefit from a series of free publicity in Highways Magazine and Smart Highways which means that more than 11,000 industry professionals will read about your schemes or product.

Nominees also attend the fabulous awards evening at the Lancaster London Hotel which is an entertaining night and a great opportunity to network.

Tables are available to any organisation in the highways industry and so if you want to be the first to know who wins whilst enjoying great food in one of London’s most prestigious hotels, call me on 07542 929 815 or book on the website at www.hmea.co.uk.


THE FORMIDABLE JUDGING PANEL FOR 2015

It is free to enter the awards and we encourage all organisations, large and small, private and public to take time to enter.

All entries are assessed by a judging panel representing all corners of the UK.

Each judge has a wealth of experience in the highways industry and combined with their own areas of expertise, they make a very formidable judging panel. For 2015, they are:

John Nightingale Head Judge and President, Institute of Highway EngineersDonald Morrison Head of Asset Management and Procurement, Transport ScotlandWayne DuerdenKevin Monaghan Divisional Manager, Transport NI, Eastern Division, Department of Regional Development, Northern IrelandMike Wilson Chief Highways Engineer and Director of Network Services, Highways EnglandRussell Bennett Former Head of Infrastructure Projects, Welsh Assembly



ITS UK

+ News round-up

n my last opinion piece, I asked who is transport really for, and are we properly considering the more vulnerable or disadvantaged in our society?

Here, I pick up on my thoughts that there is still an attitude in the industry that it is something of a gentlemen’s club, with the profession’s demographic seemingly somewhere between 90-95 per cent male, computer literate and technology savvy, relatively fit and aged in their mid-30s to mid-50s.

Whilst this population may be an ideal target for the sellers of the newest iPad or gadget magazine, are they really the best placed individuals to plan a transport system where the users of the systems vary so widely in needs, journey purpose and physical ability?

Anecdotes about “doh” moments are widespread. Early voice recognition software couldn’t understand female voices as all of the engineers and testers were male! Rumour has it that when the Oyster card was first introduced the minimum top-up was £10.00 and some people who were unable to afford top-up by

this amount were having to buy the more expensive single tickets instead.

The public toilets at St Pancras are accessed by a short flight of stairs, obviously assuming that both domestic and EuroStar travellers have no luggage to carry. With hindsight these situations are obvious but the fact is they were overlooked in the first place or not thought to be important. It is difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, but if the workforce in a company or industry is homogeneous then it is unlikely the systems they design will be tailored to a wide range of needs .

The current trend is for people to live longer and as a result want to remain active longer

too. The only thing that is certain about the future is that there will be a larger number of older and potentially less able-bodied travellers than today and, that one day, it will be us struggling with the Zimmer frame or unable to get the touch screen to work! By developing a transport system that can support a travelling public with a wide range of practical needs, we all benefit. Level access to buses that is better for a wheelchair user or parent with a pushchair is also useful for someone with a trolley suitcase or wheeled shopping trolley or who had pulled a muscle gardening at

the weekend. When recently in Copenhagen, I found the twin track of smooth pavement provided to make a smoother ride for wheelchair and pram users, a welcome relief for my feet as I tried to pick my way across the cobbles wearing high heels.

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon illustrates just how daunting our Public Transport can seem to someone who sees the world differently to the way we do. In the book (pictured below), the traveller has Asperger’s Syndrome and making the journey from Swindon to London by himself is full of many challenges not least finding out how to buy a ticket in the first place and then finally finding the correct address once leaving the tube station. The Campaign for Greener Journeys has done some amazing projects working on an one to one basis with children with disabilities and isolated immigrant women to help gain confidence using the transport network. The key is not just to show travellers how things work, but as crucially what to do if things go wrong – the bus doesn’t show up or you get off at the wrong stop and so on as these are the things that can be daunting even for a more experienced traveller.

Technology has a great role to play in supporting all travellers. I feel that one of the great benefits of autonomous vehicles will be to keep people mobile for longer. Forget platooning on the motorways and reading a book while going up

I

Opinion – from former Chairman Sharon Kindleysides

56

Who is transport really for? – part 2


A cheaper system? Initially, that might not quite have been the case...




Dr Alan Stevens of TRL replaces Sharon Kindleysides, who steps down after the customary two-year term.

He was elected at the Association’s 2015 AGM in Milton Keynes, with Ian Patey of Mouchel elected as Vice Chairman.

Alan Stevens has been involved in ITS (UK) since its origins in 1992, including terms as Technical Director and Vice Chairman. Alan is Chief Research Scientist and Research Director, Transportation, at TRL having a particular interest in user interactions with technology. Alan commented, “I am honoured to become Chairman of this established and well respected organisation. ITS is now ‘business as usual’ in many areas of

transportation but also has exciting growth potential in areas of connectivity and automation. I look forward to engaging with both the membership and the wider Intelligent Mobility community”.

One new Director was also elected, with Fraser Somerville of Atkins becoming Technical Director.

The other Directors of ITS (UK) for 2015 / 2016 who continue in their posts are:

International Director – Richard Harris, Xerox

Finance Director – Gary Umpleby, HogiaMembership Director – Graeme Scott, IBICommunications Director – Giles Perkins,

Mouchel

ITS NEWS

ITS UK has a new chairmanSHARON KINDLEYSIDES is a former

Chairman of ITS UK and is Managing

Director of Kapsch Traffi cCom Ltd


the M1, I am hoping that my autonomous car will help me get to the shops and back when my eyesight and reaction times start failing. Making information available in easy to use formats – spoken word, large type, braille, non-verbal diagrams and so on ensure that varying levels of eyesight, literacy and familiarity with the native language are catered for and can encourage individuals to feel confident in travelling further afield, perhaps for a job interview or pleasure. Think about the challenge of arriving in a new city for the first time, how many of us are tempted to use a taxi because it is easier than trying to work out the public transport system without a good grasp of the language.

So what can we do to encourage our transport engineers and planners to make inclusive and easy to use transport systems? My suggestion is that all designs and proposals have to pass the “Stag Night Test”. That is, to imagine that the designers and engineers have to use the systems themselves to get home after, for example, a Hen Party fitting of a scene from “The Only Way is Essex” or Stag Night of a Rugby Club mate. They will be decidedly less stable on their feet; find using touch screens difficult if not impossible to use accurately; undoubtedly have lost their wallet and be trying to pay with a scrunched up ten pound note and the battery in their smart phone will be flat so they have to ask for help or find and read written timetables and information. Without being disingenuous to those for whose daily journey already involves such barriers, anything that can be useable under those conditions will be just perfect for many other members of the travelling public!

Freight Interest Group – Big Data and FreightThe ITS (UK) Freight IG met as the guests of AECOM in London to discuss the potential of big data for freight applications. It was agreed that clever use of big data has a lot of potential to improve the freight sector but not just “big” but all forms of data are not used as well as they could be. As a result the sector is more inefficient, costly, and environmentally damaging than it needs to be and suffers the resulting reputational damage.

Problems which could be better addressed include congestion, safe stopping areas, availability of parking spaces and loading bays, air quality and other environmental benefits, security, and customer demands. But from the customers’ point of view, it can seem as if we offer a bewildering range of telematics solutions with no help in selecting what is suitable or not.

There are some general issues which affect freight such as increased traffic volumes, more in-vehicle technology like CANBUS, and an ageing infrastructure being used at its current capacity. The increased frequency of extreme weather events is another issue.

To illustrate the potential benefits, note that one hour saved per truck over 3.5 tonnes per

year, equates to £9 million per year to the UK economy.

The meeting heard a talk from TomTom, definitely generators of big data with their 465,000 units, 32,000 customers, 65 million km driven per year while using their services, 500 million positions recorded. They estimate that the use of their services deliver perhaps 3.9 million Euros in savings per year. TomTom is integrated with 120 software and hardware provider partners in order to provide comprehensive service packages for customers.

There was also a presentation by ITO World, who provides transport data and data visualisation services. Their capabilities include transport data sets (for journey planning, modelling etc ) and data visualisation.

They provided an example of their visualisation services – the Haven Gateway A120 improvements intended for the Regional Strategy. ITO prepared a six minute visualisation for the Transport Minister which persuaded him of the value of the proposal and earned his support for the package.

The visualisation showed journey times, journey reliability, catchment areas, road safety benefits etc.

INTEREST GROUP ROUND-UP

The stag night test... could groups of worse-for-wear revellers easily navigate a transport system?



ITS UK

+ News round-up

uring Traffex, ITS (UK) met for its by-annual Traffex dinner and presented four awards.

The Rees Hills annual award for outstanding personal contributionAllan Hill of Transport Scotland2015 is a landmark year for Allan Hill. It marks over 25 years at the heart of ITS development and excellence in Scotland – but also his retirement. Allan is a passionate advocate of ITS and supporter of ITS (UK) in Scotland. His ten year stint heading up the Traffic Scotland Service has raised the bar for network operation and traveller information services in Scotland, and because of his tireless efforts, ITS is now viewed as a vital component of every major roads project promoted by the Scottish Government.

The Scheme of the Year award

at the Dartford CrossingThe Dartford FreeFlow project is an excellent example of how ITS services and technology can raise efficiency and provide a better user service while also cutting costs. Commissioning an innovative transport scheme is rarely straightforward even when it is completely new infrastructure. But the Dartford project was far more complex as the existing ‘stop-and-pay’ charging process had

to remain operational with four lanes open, and traffic safety maintained, while all its hardware was removed to clear the paths for the new all-electronic FreeFlow scheme. It was the transport equivalent of open heart surgery but with the patient awake throughout. The multi-year project went live in November 2014 and to the original budget.

The Forward Thinking award for innovationContactless Bank Card Payment on London Public Transport NetworkTransport for London (TfL) and Cubic Transportation Systems’ contactless bank card ticketing scheme has revolutionised the way people travel around London. Since contactless was extended to all modes of transport in September 2014, its popularity has surpassed all expectations. More than half a million contactless journeys are made every weekday.

The experience of regular commuters has been significantly enhanced by removing the need for to make any sort of purchase transaction. Regular users no longer need to worry about topping up their Oyster card or waiting in lengthy queues to top up at busy stations or kiosks.

Furthermore, by enabling some non-UK issued contactless bank cards on the system, TfL and Cubic have made it easier for foreign visitors to travel through the city.

The Young Professional of the Year awardDavid Currie of Mott MacDonaldJoining Mott MacDonald in 2006, David has quickly established his capabilities in the ITS field. David is now technical product manager for Mott MacDonald’s Osprey UTMC system, and has significantly contributed to its success both technically and commercially. As project manager, he has been responsible for the initial and ongoing delivery of Osprey to a number of clients including Transport for Greater Manchester, Leeds City Council, the City and Council of Swansea and Durham County Council. David made a significant contribution to the successful delivery of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The awards are open to any organisation

nominations were judged by a panel of ITS professionals chaired by ITS (UK) President Steven Norris. The members were: Professor Nick Hounsell, Univ. of Southampton / Fraser Somerville, Atkins / Neal Skelton, ITS UK / Mike Water, Transportation Professional magazine /Jackie Davis, Bristol City Council /

D

58

Awards winners


ITS UK calendar 2015Wednesday 24 June DfT & ITS (UK) Local Authority ITS Day,Transport Systems Catapult - Milton Keynes

Friday 3rd July Automotive User Interest Group - University of Nottingham

Thursday 9th July Enforcement Interest Group Meeting, Location tbc

Tuesday 8th September Plenary Meeting for Interest Group Leaders – London E1

Wednesday 16th September Automotive User and Inclusive Mobility Interest Groups Joint Meeting - London

5-9 October ITS (UK) Exhibition Stand at the World Congress - Bordeaux

Wednesday 21st October Enforcement Interest Group Meeting, Location tbc

Thursday 29th October Joint Public Transport / Local Authority IG Meeting - tbc

Thursday 19th November Smart Environment Interest Group Conference, Arup, London

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Road User Charging Interest Group – location tbc

Thursday 28th January 2016 Enforcement Interest Group Meeting - location tbc

6-9 June 2016 ITS in Europe Congress – Glasgow

10-14 October 2016 ITS World Congress - Melbourne



http://www.atkinsglobal.com

No surprises – it’s Siemens

A new Service Operations Centre designed for you, driven by Stratos.

siemens.co.uk/traffic

Traffic Managers face multiple challenges; busy roads, limited resources, budgetary restrictions and ever-changing technology. Siemens solution is a new Service Operations Centre. A dedicated traffic management and support service, enabled by Stratos, our cloud based strategic traffic management solution. That means a secure 24X7 network management service provided by

the industry’s leading traffic consultants and engineers. Operational and system support at every level you might need, from route and junction monitoring to full strategic traffic control and network optimisation. Talk to us about the biggest development in traffic management today. Call us on 01202 782000 or visit our website.

http://www.siemens.co.uk/traffic

atkins investigates what highways england really...

Documents