Skip to main content

London buses to trial speed safety technology

New technology that is designed to reduce speeds and increase vehicle safety will be trialled on London’s buses next month, as part of the Mayor and Transport for London’s (TfL) continuing work to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads. The Mayor and TfL announced today that intelligent speed adaptation (ISA), an innovative technology that ensures vehicles can’t exceed speed limits, will be trialled on 47 London buses in a UK-first. The new technology, which was outli
June 26, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
London bus speed technology trial - photo courtesy of TfL
New technology that is designed to reduce speeds and increase vehicle safety will be trialled on London’s buses next month, as part of the Mayor and 1466 Transport for London’s (TfL) continuing work to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads.

The Mayor and TfL announced today that intelligent speed adaptation (ISA), an innovative technology that ensures vehicles can’t exceed speed limits, will be trialled on 47 London buses in a UK-first.

The new technology, which was outlined in London’s first Pedestrian Safety Action Plan last year, recognises speed limits on the route using TfL’s digital speed limit map of London, and ensures that the bus is not able to go any faster.

The trials will take place on two routes in the city, which include a variety of different road environments, with differing speed limits, allowing the new technology to be fully tested.

This will enable TfL to understand the effectiveness of ISA in promoting speed compliance across the road network and improving safety. The trials, which run until autumn, will also seek to understand the attitudes of drivers and passengers to the technology. If successful, ISA could be introduced across London’s 8,700 bus fleet.

The data informing the ISA trials will come from TfL’s digital speed limit map of London, which was re-launched last year to help spur the development of the next generation of in-vehicle technologies and mobile phone apps for the road. Making such information openly and freely available, and keeping it accurate, means existing services such as sat-navs and GPS can provide drivers with the correct information on the speed limit of the roads they are travelling on. This will give road users greater certainty and help to improve road safety.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Tackling speed enforcement with electronic vehicle recognition
    July 4, 2012
    An innovative electronic vehicle registration system is being rolled out across Bangkok in Thailand, with road safety and speed enforcement the principal aims Equipment contracts and partnerships relating to a system of electronic vehicle registration (EVR) have been forming in Bangkok over the past couple of years. EVR can be applied to tackle a broad range of problems for transport authorities, including tax evasion, crime and insurance fraud. For Thailand’s Department of Land Transport (DLT), its EVR sy
  • Robotic Research: harnessing AV potential
    June 10, 2021
    Robotic Research is leading in AV R&D, from work with the US Army to enabling the first automated BRT line in North America: Gordon Feller assesses what the company is doing
  • High level support for US DOT decision on vehicle to vehicle technology
    February 4, 2014
    The US Department of Transportation's (DOT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to begin taking steps to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology for light vehicles. This technology would improve safety by allowing vehicles to communicate with each other and ultimately avoid many crashes altogether by exchanging basic safety data, such as speed and position, ten times per second. DOT research indicates that safety applications using V2V technology can address a large
  • Crash course in workzone safety
    April 26, 2021
    A vehicle crashing through a workzone is an ever-present risk. As US National Work Zone Awareness Week approaches, Alan Dron asks what chance there is of improving the situation