Skip to main content

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.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Sri Lanka launches new highway traffic management system
    August 11, 2015
    Sri Lanka has recently opened the new highway traffic management system (HTMS), implemented by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, (MHI) on the country’s Southern Expressway. The installation is the country's first full-scale system of its kind, and it is expected to contribute significantly to improved safety and reduced congestion on a local expressway. The expressway, which opened in 2013, stretches 120 kilometres from Colombo, the largest city in Sri Lanka, to Matara. Construction work was performed under
  • Next-generation cloud-based traffic control
    December 3, 2012
    Supplier of in radar speed displays and variable message signs, All Traffic Solutions, has selected ThingWorx to support advanced application development for its SmartApps web-based traffic control suite. All Traffic’s cloud-based SmartApps suite allows law enforcement organisations, as well as state and local agencies, to remotely monitor, manage, and interact with traffic safety signs using a web-based application and virtual map. To support increased customer demand for new features and an overall increa
  • Wireless technology aids city-wide traffic management
    October 10, 2012
    An extensive hybrid communications network in the County of Los Angeles is proving the capability and benefits of modern wireless technology for traffic management across wide areas. Wireless communications technology has found a welcoming test bed for use in traffic management systems, in the County of Los Angeles. The county has long running programmes synchronizing and monitoring traffic signals over large areas. In the process, combined with installation of advanced traffic management systems (ATMS), th
  • Iteris expands US regional presence with office in Chicagoland
    February 5, 2019
    Iteris has opened a new regional office in the Chicago metropolitan area (Chicagoland) as part of an expansion in the US Midwest region. The company says it is driven by additions to various projects, which will start imminently, including the expansion of traffic signal system management services in the City of Omaha. Iteris says it is also deploying its intersection-as-a-service platform to the Kane County Department of Transportation, as well as a mobile workzone connected vehicle application for t