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

  • Kapsch connecting in Spanish corridor
    October 31, 2024
    57km stretch is on the A8 highway near Bilbao in north of country
    Read More
  • Vaisala RWS200 deployed on Aurora Smart Road
    March 20, 2018
    Vaisala is displaying its RWS200, a road weather information system that is playing a crucial role on Finland’s Aurora Smart Road, implemented by the Finnish Transport Agency, and equipped to fit research and development needs in the field of smart transport. Information on the road surface state is crucial for researching and developing automatisation, supported driving and maintenance in Arctic traffic.
    Read More
  • MVIS appoints customer relationship manager
    March 27, 2019
    MVIS has appointed Ian Lee as customer relationship manager where he will handle client services operations and manage the new North England depot. MVIS’ products and solutions are created by Bartco UK and, and incorporate monitoring and visual information equipment including variable message signs, CCTV and radar. Lee joins from Highways England and has 15 years’ experience of the highway industry, MVIS says.
    Read More
  • Monitoring, detection and control systems inside tunnels can do much to improve traveller safety
    August 6, 2013
    ITS technology can do a great deal to improve tunnel safety, as Colin Sowman discovers. It was back in April 2004 that the European Parliament adopted the EU Directive which lays down the Minimum Safety Requirements for Tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network (2004/54/EC). This was the first unitary legislation setting minimum safety standards for European road tunnels and was designed to harmonise the management of tunnel safety at a national level. Operators of existing tunnels have until 30 April 201
    Read More

Highlighted Content