UK city deploys wireless sensors to reduce congestion

In a bid to cut congestion, Portsmouth City Council in the UK has installed a wireless vehicle tracking solution in the city. The system, from Danish wireless technology company Blip Systems, was deployed by the company’s UK partner Smart CCTV which has installed BlipTrack sensors on the three most-often congested roads linking to the M27/A27 east-west corridor.
November 19, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
In a bid to cut congestion, Portsmouth City Council in the UK has installed a wireless vehicle tracking solution in the city.

The system, from Danish wireless technology company 3778 Blip Systems, was deployed by the company’s UK partner smart CCTV which has installed BlipTrack sensors on the three most-often congested roads linking to the M27/A27 east-west corridor.

The sensors use data received from Bluetooth-enables devices in passing vehicles to measure journey times and speeds, enabling the council to provide queue warnings on VMS displays and mobile apps.   It also provides the city with valuable information about traffic flow for planning and optimising traffic.

According to Smart CCTV’s Managing Director Nick Hewitson, the installation of the BlipTrack sensors costs about one-tenth of the cost of an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system.  He said at a recent 288 ITS UK conference, “BlipTrack catches upwards of 40 per cent of vehicles, compared to with 95 per cent with ANPR, but this is statistically more than adequate for journey time information”.
Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Communications redundancy increases VMS reliability
    December 17, 2014
    Hybrid communications to variable message signs increase resilience to natural disasters and enable deployment in remote areas, as Alan Allegretto explains. Variable Message Signs (VMSs) are a common sight and a well-proven means to improve public safety on our roads and highways. ITS professionals rank the VMS as second only to interoperable radios as the most important technology to improve effectiveness during emergency incidents and evacuations. Ironically, however, current systems suffer from one criti
    Read More
  • Traffic enforcement driving ANPR growth: report
    February 10, 2015
    According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research, Automatic Number Plate Recognition Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020, the automatic number plate recognition market globally is forecast to reach US$1,023.2 million by 2020. The key factors driving the growth of this market include increased adoption in traffic enforcement and surveillance applications and increasing trend of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) integrati
    Read More
  • Traffic management is increasingly image conscious
    January 27, 2025
    At the Vision show in Stuttgart, Germany, a wide variety of traffic-related solutions were on display. Adam Hill takes the temperature of the industry…
    Read More
  • Smart traffic system launched in India
    January 5, 2015
    The Noida Authority in India is to launch its intelligent traffic management system (ITMS) on the Noida-Greater Noida expressway from 11 January, following a week of trials from 5 January. The system will monitor traffic on the expressway and includes emergency call boxes linked to the expressway control room, as well as CCTV and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to provide 24/7 surveillance. LED message boards will provide drivers with information on road and weather conditions and wa
    Read More

Highlighted Content