Skip to main content

TRL powers UTC with SCOOT 7 at Highways UK

TRL demonstrated the capabilities of its new urban traffic control (UTC) system, which uses the SCOOT 7 adaptive traffic control system, at Highways UK this week.
November 8, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

The company says the UTC system - powered by SCOOT 7 (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) – will respond automatically to traffic fluctuations, thereby removing the need for signal plans.

Mike Guerin, TRL's head of sales and marketing, told 1846 ITS International the system has been designed to be more user-friendly for people who may not be experts in SCOOT.

“The data is free and open, allowing local authorities and customers to reduce the total cost of ownership for a UTC SCOOT system. On the other end of the scale, we are comfortable deploying the solution to big cities in the UK and globally,” Guerin adds.

SCOOT 7's capabilities in bus priority and cycle and pedestrian optimisation are expected to provide UTC users with the ability to manually trigger gating of traffic signals.

TRL’s professional services consultant Mark Crabtree says there is also a feature that allows users to do “smarter things” with external data sources in areas such as pollution monitoring.

“When the pollution hits a certain level, you can change the strategy of SCOOT to try and mitigate against that,” he continues. “Another example would be a car park message sign which tells people the car park is full or there is congestion on the way, allowing users to choose another car park to get to their destination quicker.”

The UTC can be deployed on an organisation’s chosen cloud platform and will be available as a subscription solution in the first quarter of 2020.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Covid-19 cleared the air: ITS can keep it clean
    July 31, 2020
    Covid-19 has created cleaner air: ITS can help keep it that way – but it’s not going to be straightforward, as Graham Anderson discovers
  • Increased automation is already improving road safety
    April 20, 2017
    Richard Cuerden considers how many of the technologies developed as part of a move toward autonomous vehicles are already being deployed as ADAS improve road safety. The drive to create autonomous vehicles has caused a re-evaluation of what is needed to safely navigate today’s roads and the development of systems that can replace the driver in many scenarios. However, many manufacturers are not waiting for ‘tomorrow’ and are already incorporating these systems in their new cars as Advanced Driver Assistanc
  • Cohda Wireless: 'New York has the best urban canyons'
    July 21, 2020
    Dr Paul Alexander, chief technical officer of Cohda Wireless, talks to Adam Hill about DSRC versus C-V2X, global connected vehicle take-up, the uses of WiFi – and, of course, seeing round the Big Apple's buildings...
  • White lines? Cyclists need more
    August 5, 2020
    Just painting lines on the road isn’t sufficient to persuade most people to cycle – you need to separate them from motor vehicles altogether. David Arminas talks to transportation engineer Tyler Golly about the Covid ‘wake-up call’