Skip to main content

Live traffic cameras help Durham Council cut congestion

Hosted video service provider NW Systems has designed and developed an 18-camera system for Durham County Council in the UK to help them monitor and manage city centre traffic congestion affecting the city’s main arteries during major road works, bridge repairs and traffic signalisation projects. NW Systems developed an HD quality camera system for the Council’s Traffic Signals and Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) team to provide real-time views over potential congestion hot spots associated w
August 5, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Hosted video service provider NW Systems has designed and developed an 18-camera system for Durham County Council in the UK to help them monitor and manage city centre traffic congestion affecting the city’s main arteries during major road works, bridge repairs and traffic signalisation projects.

NW Systems developed an HD quality camera system for the Council’s Traffic Signals and 3549 Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) team to provide real-time views over potential congestion hot spots associated with major repairs on a city centre bridge which handles approximately 48,000 vehicles each day.

During the period of the bridge repairs, traffic was restricted to one lane each way, potentially causing major congestion. A combination of early warnings to motorists and a proactive public information campaign aimed to keep the traffic moving.  

According to NW Systems, the new traffic cameras, combined with early warnings to motorists and a proactive public information campaign using the Council’s website, ensured that traffic volumes in rush-hours fell nearly 25 per cent below normal levels for the time of year.

Related Content

  • May 22, 2012
    Video developments in automatic incident detection
    David Crawford reviews technological progress with automatic incident detection Highway safety problems are likely to intensify given recent predictions of future traffic growth across the world. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that currently over 30,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries occur as the result of accidents on the nation’s roads each year. These figures will increase with the number of kilometres travelled each year in the US expected to gr
  • December 21, 2017
    Nairobi looks to ITS to ease travel problems
    Shem Oirere looks at plans to tackle chronic congestion in the Kenyan capital. Traffic jams in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, are estimated to cost the country $360 million a year in terms of lost man-hours, fuel and pollution. According to Wilfred Oginga, an engineer with the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), the congestion has been exacerbated by poor regulation and enforcement of traffic rules, absence of adequate traffic management systems and poor utilisation of existing road facilities.
  • November 5, 2015
    High-res traffic data provides planners with the big picture
    Road authorities have a lot to gain from high-resolution traffic data, argues Pravin Varaiya. Traffic engineers have traditionally been forced to operate with limited data regarding the performance of their arterials. Traffic studies are often commissioned once every three years, over a few days, to get an updated estimate of utilization.
  • June 18, 2024
    Crossing the line: managing traffic across jurisdictions
    The US will eventually have a fully-digitised transportation network, with traffic management devices talking to each other across massive distances. It’s really a question of pain points on the road to full deployment, explains Mark Talbot of Q-Free