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

  • Countering congestion’s cost
    May 6, 2015
    A new report on the economic costs of traffic congestion predicts the problem will worsen significantly in future. Jon Masters reviews the figures and some suggested solutions. New figures on the rising economic and environmental costs of congestion have been published by the US traffic data specialist Inrix and the UK’s Centre for Economics & Business Research (Cebr). Their report finds the problem much bigger than previously thought.
    Read More
  • New Jersey takes a high tech approach to smarter roads
    May 21, 2015
    IBM has developed a new transportation management solution to help minimise congestion and improve traffic flow for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA). The solution, which is part of NJTA's advanced traffic management program (ATMP), will serve both the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, two of the most heavily travelled highways and busiest toll roads in the United States. The system, which manages almost a thousand devices, provides traffic management professionals at the NJTA
    Read More
  • Highways England announces multi-million pound major road improvements
    March 16, 2017
    Multi-million pound road improvement schemes announced today by Highways England are set to help unlock the development of more than 4,000 homes and more than 10,900 jobs. The improvements, worth a total of US$92 million ((£75 million), will create opportunities around Derby and Daventry in the Midlands, Oldham in the North West, Durham in the North East and Taunton in the South West. Highways England is making a US$15.3 million (£12.45 million) contribution towards the schemes from its Growth and Hou
    Read More
  • Vital Technology data comms network deployed at Dublin Port Tunnel
    July 13, 2012
    Vital Technology has supplied a data communications network system to Egis Road & Tunnel Operation Ireland (ERTO) for the Dublin Port Tunnel which opened to traffic in 2007 and is the longest urban tunnel in Europe as well as the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in Ireland. While core components are proving durable, communication systems became subject to early obsolescence and were causing networking problems and unscheduled closures which prompted the upgrade.
    Read More

Highlighted Content