Highways England showcases progress on high tech corridor project

Highways England is leading a project to establish a high tech corridor on the A2/M2 in Kent which will allow specially-equipped vehicles to interact with roadside infrastructure. As part of the initiative, Highways England hosted a week-long Testfest event in Chatham, Kent, this week, showing how test vehicles receive information on road conditions, road works and the time left for traffic lights to change to green via a wireless network. Jo White, head of Highways England’s intelligent transport system
October 12, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
8101 Highways England is leading a project to establish a high tech corridor on the A2/M2 in Kent which will allow specially-equipped vehicles to interact with roadside infrastructure.


As part of the initiative, Highways England hosted a week-long Testfest event in Chatham, Kent, this week, showing how test vehicles receive information on road conditions, road works and the time left for traffic lights to change to green via a wireless network.

Jo White, head of Highways England’s intelligent transport systems group, says: “We are looking at ITS G5, a short-range Wi-Fi technology, and cellular technology, and are interested in how they deliver information to the vehicle.”  

As part of Testfest, ITS International travelled in a trial run of a specially-equipped people carrier along a section of the M2, which demonstrated how information is received by the onboard unit and displayed as icons on a screen behind the wheel.

For example, 60mph icons serve as a consistent reminder of the correct speed limit, while roadworks warnings can be followed by lane divert messages.

Highways England says the screens can help reduce the probability of drivers missing information displayed on roadside signs. It also provides drivers and fleet managers with information to make real-time decisions could potentially improve traffic flow along the corridor.

White believes the speed limit information could provide Highways England with more flexibility of where and when to sign information, potentially freeing it from dependence on physical infrastructure in the future.

The M2 demonstration included a simulated border in which the driver received information between two areas labelled Country A and Country B.

White says drivers can receive information from their ‘home country’ and then pass over the border and continue to receive relevant journey data. This is achieved using the driver’s existing service provider to transmit the data from the country to the in-vehicle device.

Other partners involved in the project include the 1837 Department for Transport, 1466 Transport for London and 2222 Kent County Council. This consortium is part of InterCor, a European Union programme which aims to test services which work across borders, connecting the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

The project is scheduled to be complete in 2019.

UTC

Related Content

  • September 4, 2017
    MVIS VMS solution deployed on Highways England’s road upgrade project
    Mobile Visual Information Systems (MVIS) has implemented its DATEX journey time solution (JTS) on Highway’s England’s US$1.9 billion (£1.5billion) A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon upgrade scheme, enabling an average of 85,000 drivers daily who use the 21 mile stretch of road to navigate the roadworks. The project incorporates 26 Bartco UK VMS-Cs variable message signs which display journey times from their locations to the end of the affected stretch of road
    Read More
  • May 19, 2017
    Trials of new technologies to counter age-old work zone challenges
    New solutions are being used to improve the management and safety of work zones on roads both big and small, as Jon Masters discovers. The UK government has recently been going to some lengths to paint a picture of a nation embracing a future of digital technology – understandably given the economic concerns arising from exiting the European Union. In December last year, however, the UK National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) put down a somewhat different marker for where the UK is now in terms of mobile c
    Read More
  • June 21, 2013
    Networked cars ‘make traffic safer and more efficient’
    One of the largest field tests ever conducted on Car-to-X communication has shown that information exchange between vehicles and infrastructure make traffic safer and more efficient. simTD (Safe Intelligent Mobility – Test Field Germany), a joint project by leading German automotive manufacturers, component suppliers, telecommunication companies, research institutions and public authorities recently carried out tests on the simTD technology using 500 test drivers in moving traffic. Scientists at the Technis
    Read More
  • February 7, 2019
    THEA tests connected vehicle technology in Florida
    The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) in Florida trialled connected vehicle technology which it says could lead to collision avoidance in real life. The test was carried out as part of the THEA Connected Vehicle (CV) pilot, an initiative which relies on wireless communication between onboard units that have been mounted on poles along the Slemon Expressway and throughout downtown Tampa. A special rearview mirror was installed in eight vehicles to display safety alerts to drivers. The ve
    Read More

Highlighted Content