Skip to main content

Bristol brings together support services to form major emergency control centre

A new multi-purpose centre has opened in Bristol to house the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms into a single facility for major emergencies. These teams provide public safety services that use 700 CCTV cameras around the city with a large part of the centre dedicated to managing the city’s traffic network and monitoring the flow of traffic around Bristol.
October 20, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
A new multi-purpose centre has opened in Bristol to house the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms into a single facility for major emergencies. These teams provide public safety services that use 700 CCTV cameras around the city with a large part of the centre dedicated to managing the city’s traffic network and monitoring its flow of traffic.

Staff from transport providers are now able to work with the council’s traffic management team to provide greater reliability in public transport services and more accurate real-time information about services.  

The centre monitors 200 junctions, manages almost 40 traffic and information signs, handles 46,500 welfare and telecare calls every month and has been built on a communication platform that links into the city’s high-speed fibre network.

Open 24 hours a day and 365 days a year; the centre provides traffic monitoring, set up and review of traffic signals, emergency response to telecare and assistive technology users, alarm and security monitoring, lone worker support and CCTV management.

Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol, said: “This new centre represents an investment in the safety of citizens and getting the city moving. The challenges we face to beat congestion, support vulnerable people in their homes and secure safer streets require new approaches and new ways of working. By blending state of the art technology and a collaborative approach to sharing operations we’re taking a positive step towards meeting these challenges.”

Related Content

  • New technology and economics at ITS World Congress 2011
    January 19, 2012
    ITS America prepares for the 18th World Congress on ITS and 2011 Annual Meeting, 16-20 October 2011, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida. In the final moments of the 2008 ITS World Congress in New York City, organisers and planning committee members quietly celebrated the conclusion of another extremely successful event for the ITS industry. In spite of the economic climate at the time, the 2008 World Congress was well attended by delegates from 66 countries and yielded impressive results than
  • Changing roles in data collection for traffic management
    January 23, 2012
    Transport for Greater Manchester's David Hytch discusses the evolving roles of the public and private sector in managing and disseminating data. Data services for traffic management were once the sole preserve of public sector organisations, they being uniquely placed and equipped for the work involved. Now, though, this is changing. There is even a presumption in some countries that the private sector will take a greater, if not actually a lead, role in the provision of information for transport management
  • AGD launch larger zone 645 pedestrian detector
    February 22, 2018
    AGD Systems (AGD) has upgraded its 645 Pedestrian Detector to now cover a 10m x 3m zone in a standard built format to monitor new super-crossings that are being deployed internationally. The solution is said to detect people while rejecting shadows, litter leaves and other distractions. 645 processes information on board with new chip-set and algorithms for automated decision making with the intention of providing ultra-reliable detection. It utilises a 3D high definition stereo-vision optical sensor tha
  • Westminster: DoT’s Ella Taylor on transport changes and challenges
    January 15, 2018
    Ella Taylor, head of innovation, connectivity and data, centre for connected and autonomous vehicles, Department for Transport (DoT) addressed the changes in the transport ecosystem, and how the government hopes to address challenges at Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum Keynote Seminar. Opening the presentation, Taylor stated that changes in automation are not only affecting cars but are also creating new modes of transport. In addition, changes in business models are also enabling