Skip to main content

DfT to conduct UK road markings health check

The UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded £2 million to develop a national health-check of road markings. The DfT is to analyse nearly 10,000 miles of road with the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) to understand where investment is needed. The council will use Gaist’s machine learning artificial intelligence technology to review close to 150 million high definition images. Stu McInroy, chief executive of the Road Safety Markings Association, believes the study will provide “ha
August 1, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

The UK’s 1837 Department for Transport (DfT) has awarded £2 million to develop a national health-check of road markings.  

The DfT is to analyse nearly 10,000 miles of road with the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG) to understand where investment is needed. The council will use Gaist’s machine learning artificial intelligence technology to review close to 150 million high definition images.

Stu McInroy, chief executive of the Road Safety Markings Association, believes the study will provide “hard evidence” of the decline in road markings and the associated increase in road safety risk to the public.

“Government must stand ready to act on the findings of the LCRIG/Gaist study and provide to local authorities sufficient ring-fenced funding to reverse the decline in road markings so evident to the public,” he continues. “There will also be an obligation upon local authorities to make decisions not on the basis of cost, which usually means cheapest, but on obtaining the best value for money solutions for the tax payer.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ITS benefits need to be better explained to the public
    May 1, 2018
    Nine out of ten of ITS (UK) members believe that more needs to be done to explain the benefits of ITS to the public. Respondents to a survey said that raising awareness would help sell the case to decision makers to fund technology rather than infrastructure solutions. However, participants were divided in their views on the understanding of, and support for, ITS from national and local government: 56% agreed or strongly agreed that government is supporting transport technology transport technology, while
  • ETSC says road safety is ‘vicious circle’
    June 12, 2019
    Urban road safety is a key problem in Europe, an issue that needs to be addressed as a priority. That is the finding of a new report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). The ETSC’s report reveals that road deaths on urban roads decreased at around half the rate of those on rural roads over the period 2010-2017. The report also shows that vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, account for 70% of those killed and seriously injured on urban roads. Dovilė Adminait
  • OpenSpace visualises how social distancing will work
    May 26, 2020
    OpenSpace CEO Nicolas Le Glatin tells Adam Hill how Xovis camera tech might help unlock more convenient ways for moving through mobility hubs during Covid-19
  • A global standard for enforcement systems – is it necessary?
    May 30, 2013
    Jason Barnes speaks to leading figures from the automated enforcement sector about whether a truly international standard for automated enforcement systems is necessary or can ever be achieved. Recent reports of further press controversy in the US over automated enforcement (see ‘Focusing on accuracy?’, ITS International raise again the issue of standards and what constitutes ‘good enough’ in terms of system accuracy and overall solution effectiveness. Comparatively, automated enforcement has always expe