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

  • Eco Multi monitors London walking and cycling routes
    September 3, 2012
    Traffic Technology Ltd. has revealed its involvement over the last three years with Transport for London (TfL) in developing and deploying monitoring systems for the London Olympics 2012 games walking and cycling routes. The company supplied its Eco Multi pedestrian and cycle monitoring systems which have been installed in four locations on the eight designated ‘2012 Games Walking & Cycling Routes’. Traffic Technology says the unique ‘click and lock’ modular system of the Eco Multi enables several units to
  • UITP highlights mass transit changes
    October 25, 2022
    Increasingly, public transport passengers will no longer need to carry a dedicated smartcard ticket to travel, as technology enables virtually any type of contactless payment system to take over the role.
  • Big data and GPS combine to cut emergency response times
    April 2, 2014
    David Crawford looks at technologies for better emergency medical service delivery. Emergency medical services (EMS) play key roles in transporting, or bringing treatment to, patients who become ill through medical emergencies or are injured in road traffic accidents (RTAs). But awareness has been rising steadily, in the US and elsewhere, of the extent to which EMS can generate their own emergencies. The most common cause is vehicles causing or becoming involved in RTAs, as a result of driving fast under pr
  • Smarter transport remains key to smart cities
    January 9, 2018
    Colin Sowman looks at some of the challenges and solutions that will provide enhanced transport efficiency in tomorrow’s smarter cities. However you define a ‘smart city’, one of the key ingredients will be an efficient transport system. As most governments and city authorities face financial constraints, incremental improvements in the existing systems is the most likely way forward. In London, new trains and signalling are improving the capacity of the Underground but that then reveals previously