Skip to main content

UK’s M6 to get VMS to boost safety

Four of the latest variable message signs (VMS) are to be installed around junction 35 of the M6 motorway at Carnforth, giving drivers better warnings of incidents and other information about the motorway such as weather conditions. As part of the work, new CCTV cameras will be mounted on the VMS signs and standalone masts, allowing Highways Agency traffic officers at the North West Regional Control Centre at Newton-le-Willows to monitor and manage motorway incidents more effectively. A similar, US$2
November 18, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Four of the latest variable message signs (VMS) are to be installed around junction 35 of the M6 motorway at Carnforth, giving drivers better warnings of incidents and other information about the motorway such as weather conditions.

As part of the work, new CCTV cameras will be mounted on the VMS signs and standalone masts, allowing 503 Highways Agency traffic officers at the North West Regional Control Centre at Newton-le-Willows to monitor and manage motorway incidents more effectively.

A similar, US$2.6 million project to provide new VMS and CCTV cameras around junction 33 of the M6 at Galgate was delivered earlier this year.

Highways Agency project manager Dan Foster said: “This significant investment in technology along this section of the M6 in Lancashire is being delivered through the Government’s pinch point programme and will boost the amount and frequency of information we can give to motorway users, helping to provide safer and more reliable journeys.

“The better intelligence provided by the additional cameras will also make it easier for Highways Agency traffic officers and partners like the police to respond to and manage incidents – again boosting safety and journey reliability.”

The new signs and cameras will be placed a mile and half a mile in each direction from junction 35 with two more cameras erected on standalone masts.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Improving urban traffic control in Atlanta
    January 27, 2012
    Hugh Colton, Georgia DOT details move to improve urban traffic control in the Atlanta area. With a significant proportion of traffic using freeways and toll-ways, along with a significant investment in roadway infrastructure, urban arterials are often the poor relation when it comes to ITS investment. Hitherto the primary means of Urban Traffic Control (UTC) has been the ubiquitous traffic signal. Many traffic signals still operate in a standalone mode and traffic detection is often broken, leaving the sign
  • Swarco McCain adds VMS to Virginia
    December 19, 2022
    Signs can be run by AC or DC power, plus six of them are off-grid and solar powered
  • Indra consortium awarded east-west Algeria highway contract
    June 17, 2014
    A consortium led by Codiser and including Indra has been awarded a contract to build facilities and provide equipment to operate a 380 kilometre stretch of the east-west Algerian highway. The contract, awarded by L’Algerienne de Gestion des Autoroutes (AGA), the organisation responsible for managing, operating, maintaining and servicing the Algerian national highway network, covers a stretch that links the cities of Hammam El Bibane and Bou Kadir, via the country's capital Algiers, in the central sectio
  • Plug and play approach unifies workzone ITS
    July 18, 2012
    Caltrans District 7 is finalising a ConOps document which will detail a plug-and-play to work zone ITS operation. The organisation's Allen Z. Chen elaborates. Before August is out, on current planning, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 7 (which covers Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, with a combined population of close to 11 million people) intends to have finalised a Concept of Operations (ConOps) document dealing with Work Zone Transportation Management Systems (WZTMS). The