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.”

UTC

Related Content

  • July 5, 2017
    Transport strategy must deliver fully, says FTA
    UK transport trade body the Freight Transport Association (FTA) says the Government’s new transport investment plan is good news for the sector but more investment is needed to upgrade the road network.
  • May 15, 2012
    Fuel for Thought: The what, why and how of motoring taxation
    The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has highlighted the dilemma facing many governments – motoring tax income set to fall even as traffic rises - in an analysis of the decline in the amount of revenue collect from fuel duty and VED (vehicle excise duty) in the UK. The collapse in income from motoring taxation will be caused by increasingly fuel efficient petrol and diesel cars, and the predicted large-scale take-up of electric vehicles.
  • May 8, 2014
    MPs urge more investment in UK roads
    Joined-up planning for both passenger and freight traffic across the UK’s road and rail infrastructure is crucial for future prosperity, warn MPs in two new reports. Effective regulation and long-term funding plans are essential for investment in the strategic road network.
  • October 22, 2018
    Interoperability: towards the new frontier
    After six years of intensive research, testing and negotiation, the US tolling industry is well on its way to groundbreaking results in the effort to establish regional - and eventually national - toll interoperability, says IBTTA’s Bill Cramer. Interoperability has been a high priority on the US tolling industry’s agenda for more than a decade. But several factors made it a uniquely complex issue to resolve - including the number of agencies involved, the significant investments those agencies had already