Skip to main content

Siemens technology installed on UK connected vehicles project

Siemens’ Sapphire journey time measurement system for traffic monitoring using Bluetooth technology is being installed on three main corridors into the centre of Coventry as part of a new UK project to assess how connected vehicles interact on key corridors leading into the city centre from the national road network. Led by Coventry City Council, the intelligent variable message systems (iVMS) project will draw expertise from Coventry University’s Centre for Mobility and Transport in collaboration with
November 14, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
189 Siemens’ Sapphire journey time measurement system for traffic monitoring using Bluetooth technology is being installed on three main corridors into the centre of Coventry as part of a new UK project to assess how connected vehicles interact on key corridors leading into the city centre from the national road network.

Led by Coventry City Council, the intelligent variable message systems (iVMS) project will draw expertise from Coventry University’s Centre for Mobility and Transport in collaboration with project partners HORIBA MIRA and Serious Games International (SGIL) to develop a real world connected car to infrastructure demonstrator in the West Midlands. The project began in January 2016 and is planned to end in 2018.

Many of the signalised junctions on two roads in the city and the A444 are also being upgraded by Siemens to be controlled via SCOOT and MOVA along the major corridors into Coventry to help minimise delays and further improve traffic flow. Siemens’ hosted traffic management system, Stratos, will be used to manage the data flow and send enhanced traffic data to the mobile application. Network operators will have more control of the routing information provided to commuters as the system will manage the expected traffic loads on the network.

The project will enable commuters to use a mobile phone application to plan their daily commute and be incentivised to travel at the most sustainable times. The app will seek to provide advice on when commuters should start their journey in order to avoid congestion or increase journey time reliability, as well as providing live in-journey information to give advice on the most appropriate route.

In addition, SGIL will ‘gamify’ the app, enabling the creation of an online community which can travel at the most suitable times, scoring virtual points for different sustainable driving traits such as driving style, route choices and journey times.

Related Content

  • Highways England pilots project to reduce congestion along M62
    November 13, 2017
    Highways England (HE) has begun piloting a £7 million ($9 million) project to reduce congestion at the Croft Interchange – where junction 21a of the M6 meets junction 10 of the M62, near Warrington, Cheshire. The project aims to provide drivers with smoother and more reliable journey times.
  • UK government awards funding for transport technology projects
    February 23, 2017
    The UK government has awarded funding of US$4.9 million (£4 million) for technology projects that will cut congestion, speed up journeys and clean up the environment. Nineteen councils across England will receive between US$62,000 (£50,000) US$374,000 (£300,000) each for their ideas to improve journeys through digital innovation. The government money will be spent on developing cutting edge technology such as apps and sensors which can be used to cut congestion, improve parking in city centres and ale
  • West Midlands pilots the UK’s first MaaS
    November 14, 2017
    Mobility-as-a-Service is being piloted in the UK’s second largest metropolitan area and will shortly be opened to the travelling public. A fully operational Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) offering is being piloted in the West Midlands region of the UK. Covering seven local authorities which make up the West Midlands metropolitan area and population of 2.8 million, the service is being provided through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), Finnish company MaaS Global
  • Siemens announces TfL deal
    March 21, 2018
    Siemens has announced a deal with Transport for London (TfL) which will see the German company create a real-time optimiser (RTO) for traffic control in the UK capital. Markus Schlitt, CEO of intelligent traffic systems at Siemens, said: “We are developing the most modern adaptive traffic control system on Earth.” The RTO will sit in London’s Surface Intelligent Transport System (SITS) and will help “really make London a much more liveable city”, Schlitt added. It is designed to optimise traffic signals b