Councils in North East England receive funding to upgrade traffic management technology.

The UK Government has announced fund valued £3.64 million ($4.79 million) to upgrade the traffic management technology and improve journey times across the North East Combined Authority area (NECA). It will include upgrades to traffic signals on key regional routes with Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras, Variable Message Signs and integration with public transport data from Nexus. The Department of Transport paid £2.8 million ($3.6million) of the fund and the rest came from local authority contribu
October 27, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The UK Government has announced fund valued £3.64 million ($4.79 million) to upgrade the traffic management technology and improve journey times across the North East Combined Authority area (NECA). It will include upgrades to traffic signals on key regional routes with Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras, Variable Message Signs and integration with public transport data from 2105 Nexus. The Department of Transport paid £2.8 million ($3.6million) of the fund and the rest came from local authority contributions.


The technology allows the camera to be monitored from the regional Urban Traffic Management Centre (1682 UTMC), allowing officers to adjust signal timings where necessary to improve traffic flow and provide better and reliable journey times to the travelling public.

Newcastle City Council submitted the funding bid on behalf of the North East Combined Authority for the expansion of the UTMC. It was one of 76 successful projects across the country to win a share of £244m ($186 million).

NECA is the seven councils which serve County Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland.

Cllr Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council and transport lead for the North East Combined Authority, said: “This funding is great news for commuters and business and will help cut journey times across the area. “We have a great facility here in the North East where we work together across the area to monitor the traffic network across local authority boundaries. This new investment means we can connect up traffic signals across key routes so we can smooth our traffic flows where we see congestion building up and adjust traffic signals right across the network to keep traffic moving at peak periods. “Providing reliable journey times and improving connectivity across the region is also a real benefit for our local economy as it helps people to access jobs and training and supports the efficient transport of goods.”

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Future traffic management needs new thinking, new technology
    January 23, 2012
    One of the biggest problems facing US ITS professionals, says Georgia DOT's Hugh Colton, is the constrained thinking which is sometimes forced upon those making procurement decisions. It is time, he says, to look again at how we do things. In the November/December 2010 edition of this journal, Pete Goldin interviewed Joseph Sussman, chairman of the US's ITS Program Advisory Committee. Amongst other observations that Sussman made was that, technologically, ITS in the US is 10 years behind that in the world-l
    Read More
  • Crossing the line: managing traffic across jurisdictions
    June 18, 2024
    The US will eventually have a fully-digitised transportation network, with traffic management devices talking to each other across massive distances. It’s really a question of pain points on the road to full deployment, explains Mark Talbot of Q-Free
    Read More
  • Ukraine turns to ITS to cope with traffic increases
    June 9, 2015
    With increasing road fatalities the Ukrainian government is planning to introduce ITS technology in 2016-2017. Eugene Gerden finds out more. The government of Ukraine is considering a massive introduction of ITS in the national system of traffic during the period 2016-2017, according to a recent statement by the Ukrainian Ministry of Transport. According to the Ukrainian government, implementation of the project is an acute need, as in recent years the number of road accidents in Ukraine has significantly
    Read More
  • Danish cities receive funds for cycle infrastructure
    June 15, 2015
    Three Danish cities have received over US$1.4 million to develop cycling infrastructure. Odense, Faaborg-Midtfyn and Middelfart received the funding from a national transport fund which aims to build bicycle infrastructure, strengthen rural public transport and increase the use of buses across Denmark.
    Read More

Highlighted Content