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

  • Valuing ITS
    February 2, 2012
    Politicians, policy- and decision-makers need no-nonsense, non-technical answers on which to base investments in ITS. The International Benefits, Evaluation and Costs (IBEC) Working Group can provide them, says its Chair, Richard Harris
  • Congestion pricing - no such thing as a free ride
    October 2, 2018
    The widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles is likely to increase congestion, many experts believe. But Wes Guckert of Traffic Group believes that tolling could provide the answer. While it is still hard to wrap your head around the idea of getting into a vehicle without a driver, the industry is now used to hearing, reading, participating in the advancement of autonomous vehicles (AVs). Those in the industry have heard about Uber delivering a shipment of Budweiser, or the convoy of driverless trucks
  • Technology holds the key to painless parking
    March 21, 2014
    Parking has been the most innovative of all the transportation sectors in the past five years. Richard Harris, Solution Director, Xerox Services outlines some of the key drivers and trends
  • Developing ‘next generation’ traffic control centre technology
    July 4, 2012
    The Rijkswaterstaat and Highways Agency have joined forces to investigate what the market can do to realise an idealistic vision for traffic control centre technology. Jon Masters reports One particular seminar session of the Intertraffic show in Amsterdam in March was notably over subscribed. So heavy was the press to attend that your author, making his way over late from another appointment, could not get in and found himself craning over other heads locked outside to overhear what was being said. The