The fire, security and communication installer TIS is part of a successful bid by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) for Government funding. WMCA have been awarded £2.65m towards trials on the use of technology to tackle traffic congestion.
The project, announced by the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, will centre on research for new technology including video analytics to provide accurate information on congestion, average speed and average journey times.
James Twigg, Managing Director, TIS said: “We are absolutely delighted to hear the news that WMCA have been successful in their Adept project bid. It’s amazing news for them and the whole region. It is truly exciting to be part of something that could change the way the whole country manages travel in and around cities. We are very proud to be part of this and cannot wait to get to work assisting WMCA in making this project a huge success.”
The Live Labs projects will be delivered by WMCA after a joint bid with councils, including Solihull and Birmingham. If successful it could be adopted by other councils across the UK. The transport arm of WMCA, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), are leading, with teams taking data from over 200 CCTV cameras along ten selected road corridors to collect, analyse and model it. The pilots will build up a picture using video analytics to work out point to point vehicle journey times during time windows. The analytics system will also begin to understand ‘normal’ journey times along the routes and provide real time alerts of abnormal conditions.
It is hoped that this new level of data will enable transport planners to provide quicker intervention when there is congestion identified; and to communicate with those travelling across the conurbation the quickest routes to take. Eventually it is planned that this technology could support automated and individualised transport advice.
The background is big infrastructure delivery in the region: the introduction of Sprint, the doubling of the tram system, the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 and the arrival from London of HS2 to a new station, Curzon Street in Birmingham, in 2026.
Mark Babington, Head of Safety, Security and Emergency Planning for West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) said: “We are delighted to have been successful in our bid to attract significant investment in technology to the West Midlands. This technology will enable us to gather, analyse and respond to travel patterns and demand in real time, as well as provide more accurate information for future traffic modelling. This project shows that by supplementing with video analytics, CCTV can be used in many more ways than traditionally expected. I would like to thank our tech partners TIS, Hanwha and 4Sight in supporting our bid and look forward to working with them to deliver this project.”
Picture by Mark Rowe; Coventry bus station.
