Highways England awards NRTS contract to Telent Technology services

Highways England (HE) has awarded the second National Roads Telecommunications Service (NRTS) contract, valued £450m ($602m), to Telent Technology Services. The project aims to keep road users as safe and informed as possible on the UK's motorways and will run for seven years from March 2018. In addition, this technology will also continue to support the smart motorway and expressway programmes.
December 19, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
8101 Highways England (HE) has awarded the second National Roads Telecommunications Service (NRTS) contract, valued £450m ($602m), to 525 Telent Technology Services. The project aims to keep road users as safe and informed as possible on the UK's motorways and will run for seven years from March 2018. In addition, this technology will also continue to support the smart motorway and expressway programmes.


The new service will renew equipment and provide an open, flexible and scalable telecommunications network to meet the future needs of the business as well as support HE in the development of connected vehicles and 5G.

NRTS connects HE's seven regional control centres, the national traffic operations centre and the 30,000 roadside technology assets including message signs, CCTV cameras and emergency roadside telephones.

These items include 3,327 CCTV cameras, 3,774 message signs, 229 weather stations and 7,155 SOS phones. The network enables traffic information services to provide accurate, real-time travel information to drivers and travel news providers. The message signs help warn drivers of potential hazards and display real-time journey information.

Tony Malone, chief information officer at HE, said: “Safety is at the heart of everything we do and this network, the central nervous system for England’s motorways, enables us to operate safe roads. We are pleased to be working with Telent Technology Services to deliver the reliability, resilience and innovation that will enable us to keep drivers safe and informed on our roads.”

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Audi and Inrix debut online traffic services
    January 7, 2015
    Audi and Inrix have joined forces to introduce Inrix XD Traffic services to Audi vehicles in North America, available in model year 2015 Audi vehicles with Audi connect. Inrix XD Traffic services cover more than two million miles of road in North America, including highways, ramps, interchanges, arterials, city and other secondary roads, delivering real-time navigation information, including routes, travel times and alerts to incidents on the road. The addition of Inrix XD Traffic to the Audi connect
    Read More
  • Major new traffic signal maintenance contract awarded in Scotland
    August 12, 2015
    Glasgow City Council and West Dunbartonshire Council have awarded a joint contract to Siemens to maintain roadside traffic control and information equipment for a period of up to five years, commencing 1 August 2015. The new contract includes the provision of associated ancillary support services, as well as the supply of works and services to support the Councils’ traffic control operation and periodical planned signal and optical maintenance, With equipment at over 500 traffic signal intersections and
    Read More
  • Vehicle manufacturers and local authorities seek satnav solutions
    December 5, 2013
    The increasing capability of satellite navigation is helping vehicle manufacturers and local authorities as well as individual drivers and fleets. In comparison to the physical ITS infrastructure in towns and cities and on motorways and highways, satellite navigation (satnav) systems have come a long way in a short time. Many (if not the majority) individual drivers and fleets use or have access to a satnav and now the vehicle manufacturers and even local authorities are beginning to utilise satnav derived
    Read More
  • IBM and NXP partner on Dutch connected car pilot
    February 21, 2013
    The first results of a smarter traffic pilot, conducted in the Dutch city of Eindhoven by IBM and NXP Semiconductors demonstrate how the connected car automatically shares braking, acceleration and location data that can be analysed by the central traffic authority to identify and resolve road network issues, say the companies. “The trial successfully showed that anonymous information from vehicles can be analysed by local traffic authorities to resolve road network issues faster, reduce congestion and impr
    Read More

Highlighted Content