Highways England to trial wirelessly connected vehicles and driverless cars

Highways England (HE) is to invest US$213.5 million (£150 million) on new technology, including trials of driverless car technology on motorways. As part of its innovation strategy, HE may introduce a connected corridor, or ‘wi-fi road’, which could see cars and infrastructure wirelessly connected, with drivers receiving news of advanced road closures or congestion warnings. The strategy also includes trialling radar technology on motorways and in tunnels to improve the way breakdowns are detected. A
April 11, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
8101 Highways England (HE) is to invest US$213.5 million (£150 million) on new technology, including trials of driverless car technology on motorways.

As part of its innovation strategy, HE may introduce a connected corridor, or ‘wi-fi road’, which could see cars and infrastructure wirelessly connected, with drivers receiving news of advanced road closures or congestion warnings. The strategy also includes trialling radar technology on motorways and in tunnels to improve the way breakdowns are detected.

As part of the strategy, HE will also join a trial that would see journey information sent wirelessly to specially adapted vehicles on the A2/M2 between London and Kent.

It also plans to ensure that trials are being undertaken for autonomous vehicles on motorways by the end of next year, to start to collect real world data on performance and potential impacts on capacity and operations.

The strategy also includes trialling radar technology on motorways and in tunnels to improve breakdown detection, as well as the possibility of improving the signalling of junctions on motorways to increase traffic flows and the development of ‘expressways’ on A-roads to encourage more free-flowing traffic.

Highways England chief executive Jim O’Sullivan said: “We’re committed to using innovation to benefit the millions of journeys made on England’s Strategic Road Network today and in the future. We will work with our partners in the supply chain, technology specialists and the automotive industry to trial new technologies that will help make journeys on our roads safer, more reliable and better informed.

“This will involve supporting trials of better connected and autonomous vehicles on our motorways by the end of next year, testing radar technology to better detect breakdowns, and trialling fuel price signs on the M5 between Bristol and Exeter.”
Networking & Communication Systems Urban Traffic Control Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • London buses to trial speed safety technology
    June 26, 2015
    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
    Read More
  • Highways England appoints Janette Beinart as non-exec director
    January 28, 2019
    Highways England has appointed a data specialist to advise the organisation, which manages England’s major roads. Janette Beinart, former interim chief information officer at investment business M&G Prudential, will join as a non-executive director. Colin Matthews, Highways England’s chairman, says: “Janette’s extensive knowledge and experience of applying big data and digitalisation to a changing business landscape will be tremendously valuable as we plan for the future and developments which can transfo
    Read More
  • C/AVs could mean cheaper roads
    October 28, 2019
    The safety benefits of C/AVs have long been promoted – but research suggests they should also contribute to cheaper roads. David Crawford investigates the potential benefits in infrastructure costs Building narrower freeway lanes to accommodate the enhanced route-tracking capabilities of connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs), running in platoon conditions, could result in cost savings of £0.5 million (€0.56 million or US$6.5 million) for every km of road length built. Such benefits could be secur
    Read More
  • Wireless - the future of vehicle detection
    July 23, 2012
    Peter Cattell of Clearview Traffic analyses different wireless communications methods and explains how these are changing the face of vehicle detection. With the continued expansion of traffic data collection solutions, providing a robust, reliable, scalable and secure method of collecting information becomes increasingly important. Over many years, various mobile wireless technologies have been utilised to make the remote collection of data a reality but recent developments are changing the way that this w
    Read More

Highlighted Content