Member Article

TIS SUPPORTING GOVERNMENT TO HELP FUTURE PROOF OUR ROADS

TIS, the UK’s leading independent fire, security and communication specialists, are delighted to announce they have been part of a successful bid by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) for Government Funding. WMCA have been awarded £2.65 million to support research and trials on the use of technology solutions to tackle traffic congestion. The project, announced this week 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 following a joint bid with councils, including Solihull and Birmingham and, if successful, could be adopted by other authorities across the UK. The transport arm of WMCA, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), are leading the collaboration, with teams taking data from over 200 CCTV cameras along 10 selected local 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 different 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 not only provide quicker intervention when there is congestion identified, but also proactively 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 project is being delivered in the context of unprecedented infrastructure delivery, including the introduction of Sprint, the doubling of the tram system, the Commonwealth Games in 2022 and of course HS2 in 2026. It is hoped this project will go some way to making sure the region continues to move during this time, and that disruption is mitigated as part of their recently launched Congestion Management Plan.

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.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dawn Spendlove .