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

  • How public transit improves quality of life
    June 29, 2022
    There are various reasons why Mobility as a Service is catching on more in Europe than the US – but there are still other ways in which access to mobility can be improved across the states, finds Gordon Feller
  • Opening the closed-loop to realise ITS benefits
    April 8, 2014
    Jim Leslie, manager of ITS applications engineering at the Econolite Group looks at practical steps in transitioning from closed-loop masters to a centralised ATMS. Not many years ago the standard method of coordinating signalised intersections in local areas was to install an on-street master – each of which monitored and controlled a limited number of signal controllers or intersections as a closed-loop system. And, to a certain extent, each closed-loop system was autonomous from others deployed by the ag
  • Audi 5G aimed at urban mobility safety in Germany
    October 24, 2019
    Audi is working with Deutsche Telekom and the German city of Ingolstadt to use new 5G technology to improve urban mobility. The partners will seek to develop a digital transport infrastructure that will improve road safety and traffic flows and provide real-time digital services. Audi says 5G can be applied to connected traffic signals at road junctions that exchange anonymised movement data with cars and other road users via the network. This allows drivers to react more quickly to unforeseen movements,
  • Audi 5G aimed at urban mobility safety in Germany
    October 24, 2019
    Audi is working with Deutsche Telekom and the German city of Ingolstadt to use new 5G technology to improve urban mobility. The partners will seek to develop a digital transport infrastructure that will improve road safety and traffic flows and provide real-time digital services. Audi says 5G can be applied to connected traffic signals at road junctions that exchange anonymised movement data with cars and other road users via the network. This allows drivers to react more quickly to unforeseen movements,