Skip to main content

Highways Agency extends IT support contract with IPL

IPL has announced a two year services extension worth half a million pounds from the Highways Agency (HA) which will enable the HA to manage the display information on roadside signalling devices in order to help increase road capacity, improve safety and reduce congestion. IPL has been working with the HA for over two decades, developing and delivering a set of tools to support the setup of the information on gantry signals and message signs required for schemes such as smart motorways. The tools pla
March 21, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
IPL has announced a two year services extension worth half a million pounds from the 503 Highways Agency (HA) which will enable the HA to manage the display information on roadside signalling devices in order to help increase road capacity, improve safety and reduce congestion.

IPL has been working with the HA for over two decades, developing and delivering a set of tools to support the setup of the information on gantry signals and message signs required for schemes such as smart motorways.

The tools play a key part in the rollout of all major road schemes, including smart motorways, and help the HA ensure the right information will be displayed on roadside signs and overhead signals in a range of situations, before new equipment is rolled out.

The enhancements IPL has made have drastically speeded up the process of configuring and testing the information on each piece of equipment, notably by providing intuitive graphical user interfaces and streamlining key tasks such as data input.

Related Content

  • July 23, 2012
    Radar effective as detection tool for hard shoulder running
    Navtech Radar's millimetric-wave systems are being researched on the M42 in England to look into how this type of detector can assist in the opening of the hard shoulder as an additional running lane. Here, the company's Stephen Clark talks about the technology being used. In England, the Highways Agency's (the HA, an executive agency of the Department for Transport) Managed Motorways system - formerly called Active Traffic Management - uses electronic signs and signals mounted on gantries to direct drivers
  • April 8, 2014
    UK defaults to hard shoulder running to expand motorway capacity
    Hard shoulder running has become the UK’s default response to increasing motorway capacity as Colin Sowman reports. Facing a predicted 46% increase in traffic levels by 2040 and the current economic recovery leading to more people travelling to, from and for work leaves the UK government under short- and long-term pressure to increase the capacity on the main motorway network. Particular sections of motorways are already experiencing repeated, sometimes tidal, congestion and both tight Treasury limits and t
  • November 10, 2014
    M25 upgraded to ‘smart’ motorway
    Road users on the vast majority of the UK’s M25 will benefit from four-lane capacity now that the final section between junctions 25 and 27 has become a smart motorway. The road has been upgraded from three to four lanes in each direction, with the hard shoulder converted for use as a permanent traffic lane and enhanced on-road technology to manage traffic flow to improve the reliability of journey times, providing a boost for businesses and the wider economy.
  • September 15, 2014
    Congestion-busting roads boost across England
    A widespread congestion-busting road improvement programme worth hundreds of millions of pounds has now tackled 39 bottlenecks, with more than another 80 to be completed in the next seven months. According to the Highways Agency, the US$515 million ‘pinch point’ programme will cut congestion, increase safety and improve journey times and help support the creation of 300,000 new jobs and 144,000 homes. The improvement plans, part of the biggest programme of road enhancements since the 1970s, were dra