Skip to main content

New consortium leads smart city initiative for Exeter

Exeter City Council and Devon County Council, working with a consortium led by IT services provider NTT Data, have unveiled a ground-breaking, two-year intelligent transport project for the area. Through the project, the group aims to identify solutions that will alleviate traffic congestion in and around Exeter, an historic city in the county of Devon, in south-west England. NTT Data will lead the consortium of traffic experts and specialist providers including Imtech Traffic & Infra, Vaisala, the Unive
December 10, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Exeter City Council and Devon County Council, working with a consortium led by IT services provider NTT Data, have unveiled a ground-breaking, two-year intelligent transport project for the area. Through the project, the group aims to identify solutions that will alleviate traffic congestion in and around Exeter, an historic city in the county of Devon, in south-west England.

NTT Data will lead the consortium of traffic experts and specialist providers including 6999 Imtech Traffic & Infra, 144 Vaisala, the University of Exeter and big data specialist Black Swan.

The Engaged Smart Transport project will use real-time traffic and weather sensor data, combined with other data sources such as eyewitness and behavioural information to better understand the factors affecting people’s travel behaviour. It will reveal where and why congestion happens and identify solutions to address these problems. The consortium has been awarded match funding by Innovate, the UK Government’s innovation agency.

Exeter is setting out a growth plan for the city that will deliver 12,000 new homes, 60 hectares of new business land and 40,000 square metres of new retail space by 2026. Increased population and commuter movement will add to pressures on infrastructure and public transport services. Exeter has a central population of 120,000 that already experiences daily congestion as well as one-off spikes caused by events.

The consortium believes that understanding how existing road capacity can be managed more effectively is critical for Exeter to deliver this growth. Taking an innovative approach to the use of existing and new data from a range of sources such as sensor technology, social media feedback and the latest traffic algorithm technology, the Engaged Smart Transport project will deliver insight into population movement and provide answers to real-world traffic issues.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Building Europe’s roads for driverless age
    June 17, 2022
    Creating smart, co-operative road transport systems that harness the white heat of technology won’t be easy but a new document shows the way – Andrew Stone does some reading…
  • Michael Baker International to study traffic congestion in Los Angeles
    February 8, 2017
    Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has awarded Michael Baker International a contract to study the I-605/SR-91 interchange, identify improvements and widen a particularly congested three-mile stretch of westbound SR-91 in Los Angeles. The project spans westbound SR-91 from the vicinity of Shoemaker Avenue to the I-605/SR-91 interchange, used by 270,000 vehicles a day. It also includes improvements to the Norwalk, Pioneer and Bloomfield local interchanges within the Gateway
  • Moscow Metro ticketing: your face here
    January 18, 2022
    Metro users in Russian capital Moscow no longer need a card to pay for travel – they just need their face. So does the system actually work? And what about security concerns? ITS International sent Moscow Metro a series of questions – and here are the answers…
  • SmartDrive launch new suite of sensors to tackle high-risk driving behaviour
    November 2, 2017
    SmartDrive Systems has introduced its SmartSense for Distracted Driving (SSDD), the first in a new line of intelligent sensors that are designed with the intention of identifying dangerous driving habits and intervening with drivers before a catastrophic event occurs. It uses computer vision-based algorithms along with SmartDrive’s video analytics platform to recognize when a driver is distracted.