Skip to main content

Traficon incident detection technology deployed in Dartford tunnel

Traficon has been awarded a contract to provide 70 VIP-IP video image processing boards for installation in the Dartford tunnel on London’s M25 orbital motorway. The technology will be installed in collaboration with Vital Technology Ltd, and will provide extensive automatic incident detection (AID) capabilities, including the detection of stopped vehicles and smoke detection. The Dartford - Thurrock river crossing is one of Europe's most heavily used crossings and complex traffic management systems. An ave
June 26, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
5574 Traficon has been awarded a contract to provide 70 VIP-IP video image processing boards for installation in the Dartford tunnel on London’s M25 orbital motorway. The technology will be installed in collaboration with 6028 Vital Technology Ltd, and will provide extensive automatic incident detection (AID) capabilities, including the detection of stopped vehicles and smoke detection.

The Dartford - Thurrock river crossing is one of Europe's most heavily used crossings and complex traffic management systems. An average of 140,000 vehicles a week pass through the crossing, which comprises two dual-lane tunnels carrying traffic to the north and a four-lane cable-stayed bridge carrying traffic to the south.

“This award demonstrates Traficon’s strong market position in video based automatic incident detection systems and our client’s confidence in our solutions,” said Sukhdev Bhogal, business development director at Traficon. “By detecting incidents fast, secondary accidents can be avoided and traffic congestion reduced dramatically.”

The Traficon VIP-IP is a multi-functional video image processor for traffic control using network cameras. It integrates automatic incident detection, data collection, vehicle presence detection, digital recording of pre and post-incident video sequences and streaming video in one board for a variety of traffic management applications such as tunnels, highways and bridges. The board makes use of field-proven Traficon algorithms that were implemented in other boards like VIP-T video detection board for analogue cameras. The company claims this ensures high reliability and a low false alarm rate of this new IP version right from the start.

Data, events and alarms generated by the VIP-IP detector boards are handled by Traficon’s Flux management system. The main goal of Flux is to manage and control all traffic information generated by these various detectors and to make it useful, meaningful and relevant to the user.

Traficon has been awarded several AID tunnel projects in the UK over the past few years, with the Tyne, Hatfield and Medway Tunnels as the major examples. Last year, the company successfully commissioned 40 VIP-T AID detector boards in the northbound Blackwall tunnel, which is set to be a crucial traffic gateway towards the Olympic stadium in East London during the upcoming Summer Olympic Games.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Maintaining momentum: learning lessons from the London Olympics
    November 15, 2013
    Japan will not only host this year’s ITS World Congress but has been selected for the 2020 Olympics. So what can Japan, and indeed Brazil, learn from the traffic management for London 2012 - Geoff Hadwick finds out. It was a key moment when Olympic boss Jacques Rogge signed off London 2012, calling the Games “happy and glorious.” Scarred by the logistical disaster of Atlanta 1996 and the last-minute building panic for Athens 2008, Rogge clearly thought London 2012 was an object lesson in how to plan and
  • Technology targets Red-X transgressors
    February 25, 2016
    Currently deployed technology is being used to detect motorists ignoring the ‘red-X’ signs that indicate the lane is closed, as Colin Sowman hears. With an increasing network of ‘Smart Motorways’ - all-lane running or the opening of hard shoulders during times of congestion - Highways England (HE) has identified a growing problem with ‘red-X’ compliance. The ‘red-X’ sign signifies a closed lane or lanes and used to provide a safer area for stranded motorists, emergency workers or road maintenance crews and
  • Teledyne Flir brings Middle East into vision
    July 10, 2023
    As urban sprawl creeps across the Middle East and Africa, congested roads aren’t far behind. Hesham Enan of Teledyne Flir explains to Adam Hill how traffic technology is helping authorities to cope
  • Milestone plug-in developed for Tattile Vega
    May 15, 2020
    Tattile has announced the integration of its primary camera range with Milestone’s video management system (VMS).