Skip to main content

Essex and Hertfordshire councils trial smart city services

Telensa will assess the potential quality-of-life and economic benefits of a range of smart city technologies in partnership with Essex County Council (ECC) and Hertfordshire County Council. The potential to monitor issues remotely, according to Ian Grundy, ECC cabinet member for highways, will save taxpayers money and help fix issues before they become a problem. Both councils are now assessing the suitability of three sites in Hertfordshire and Essex towns for a two-month pilot in March. The smart
March 8, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
7574 Telensa will assess the potential quality-of-life and economic benefits of a range of smart city technologies in partnership with Essex County Council (ECC) and Hertfordshire County Council. The potential to monitor issues remotely, according to Ian Grundy, ECC cabinet member for highways, will save taxpayers money and help fix issues before they become a problem.


Both councils are now assessing the suitability of three sites in Hertfordshire and Essex towns for a two-month pilot in March.

The smart city solutions will send alerts that predict issues for blocked street drains that cause flooding. They will also be used to notify the highways team of high winds or gusts and help them build a data set that predicts dangerous driving conditions. In addition, traffic monitoring and analytics will dim unnecessary streetlighting on empty roads to understand local traffic patterns while air quality monitoring is intended to deliver street-by-street measurements.

Ralph Sangster, executive member for Highways at HCC, said: “Smart technology is becoming an essential tool in delivering a high quality highways services and ‘Safe Smart’ is an exciting opportunity to trial a modern technology which reinforces Hertfordshire County Council's ongoing commitment to maintain and improve roads for the benefit of all Hertfordshire residents.

UTC

Related Content

  • May 7, 2014
    Essex benefits from wireless street lighting
    Telensa’s wireless street lighting control system is now fully operational across the Essex in the UK, connecting 125,000 street lights to what is believed to be the world’s largest wireless street lighting central management system (CMS), delivering instant fault detection, improved maintenance, lower carbon emissions and significant energy savings.
  • February 20, 2019
    StreetLight Data maps future
    Laura Schewel of StreetLight Data talks to Adam Hill about the importance of measuring what you do – and about how paint will remain perhaps the most important piece of technology in the city planners’ armoury for a decade to come Transportation is dangerous, responsible for 30% of global cargo emissions today. Some experts believe that it will be responsible for 80% by 2050. And that’s before you even get on to the safety question - just ask tech entrepreneur Laura Schewel. “Transportation is getting wo
  • February 22, 2018
    Wellington embraces smart parking solution
    A smart parking solution can ease pain for drivers and increase efficiency for local authorities - and New Zealand’s capital is feeling the benefit. Adam Hill reports. ITS technology has the power to ease headaches for local authorities and car drivers alike when it comes to parking. For urban dwellers, few things are more irritating than driving slowly around crowded city centre streets, anxiously searching for a parking space – indeed, in congested downtown areas, as much as 30% of traffic can be driving
  • August 23, 2018
    IBTTA: industry must commit to trust and accountability
    Without a commitment to trust and accountability, the modern road tolling industry would not have the bedrock which it requires – and which customers demand, says IBTTA’s Bill Cramer When Tim Stewart, executive director of Colorado’s E-470 Public Highway Authority, settled on ‘trust and accountability’ as the themes for his year as IBTTA president, it was a very deliberate choice. Stewart was looking for language that would help deliver the global tolling industry’s message of service excellence to cust