Highway & Network Management

AGD’s 318 Traffic Control Radar rises above the fray

September 28, 2018

England’s Staffordshire County has replaced speed detection loops at a busy junction with the AGD above-ground 318 Traffic Control Radar. The council, as with many local authorities, is avoiding in-ground detection wherever possible as a smart solution to wear-prone loops and magnetometers. “Because the road surface was in such poor condition where the [below-ground] loops would have been installed, the AGD 318 radar gave us an ideal, non-intrusive solution for detection,” said Martin Fenlon, principal si

Highways England reappoints Mott MacDonald to Change Advisory Board

September 28, 2018

Mott MacDonald will continue to manage Highways England’s Change Advisory Board and its websites for technical specifications four years after the initial appointment. The contract is due to finish in 2020, with the potential to extend service provision for two six-month increments at the end of the first year. Mott MacDonald said that the board is the essential forum which safeguards the technical development of Highways Agency Traffic Management Systems. Highways England relies on it to control its day-t

UK’s Sandwell Council awards signal maintenance contract to telent

September 28, 2018

UK technology and network services company telent has been awarded a four-year contract to provide traffic signal maintenance services to England’s Sandwell Council. The deal marks the third win for telent’s traffic business in 2018, following wins with Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, both also in England. The Sandwell deal – tendered - sees telent retain its decade-long contract. It covers 109 traffic signal junctions, 174 pedestrian crossings and eight journey-time monitoring

Highways England on track with smart motorway upgrade near Cheshire

September 28, 2018

A 20tonne gantry – the biggest single structure under a major motorway upgrade in England - has been hoisted into place in Cheshire county.

Zipping up road lanes

September 28, 2018

QMB has a Lindsay Road Zipper on duty near Montreal. World Highways deputy editor David Arminas climbed aboard As vice president of Canadian barrier specialist QMB, based in Laval, Quebec, Marc-Andre Seguin is sanguine about the future for moveable barriers. On the one hand, it looks good. The oft-stated advantage of moveable barriers is that the systems are cheaper to install than adding a lane or two to a highway or bridge. Directional changes to lanes can boost volume on a road without disrupting tra

UK road death statistics figures show no reduction

September 27, 2018

IAM RoadSmart, the UK’s biggest independent road safety charity, said it is concerned by lack of progress in road deaths – and calls for a new focus on driver behaviour. Although cars are getting safer and there has been a step change in new road investment, careless human behaviour and increasing traffic levels are cancelling this out, according to the charity. The UK’s Department of Transport announced this week that there were 1,793 reported road deaths in 2017 - an increase of one on 2016. T

Austria is first to tender for C-ITS data collection on roads

September 18, 2018

This time next year Austria will be the first European country to have vehicles that collect safety‐relevant traffic information in real‐time. “We’re going for it,” Marko Jandrisits, the telematics services programme manager for Austria’s publicly own road and toll company ASFiNAG, said the tender for equipping the Austrian motorway network with the hardware and software for C-ITS – cooperative ITS - had just been launched. “The future is here,” said Jandrisit on the stand of AustriaTech at the ITS W

Easylux: radical improvement on retroreflectometer technology

August 22, 2018

The department of transportation in the US state of Arizona has automated its data processes, says Duncan Guthrie* In Arizona, the Department of Transportation (ADOT) is improving the way it responds to the demand for information from the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA). ADOT is implementing an automated, repeatable process to simplify and smooth the creation and maintenance of their state-wide dataset. This will meet reporting requirements for ARNOLD - All Road Network Of Linear Referenced Data -

Poetry in motion

August 9, 2018

A heavy-lift operation by Roll-iT using Enerpac equipment delivered a bridge deck - with a poem engraved on the underside - to Antwerp’s old harbour Only when the deck of the new Londenbrug Bridge is raised do travellers see the poem by Antwerp poet Stijn Vranken. It is written large on the underside of the 300tonne prefabricated steel deck. People waiting for a ship to pass the raised bridge now contemplate the poem’s message about ships transporting goods and people to and from the four corners of the

Greater Manchester's smart motorway M60 now fully-operational

August 6, 2018

Drivers using the M60 in the greater Manchester area now using the region’s first smart motorway, according to Highways England. The technology, which went line on July 31 on the final M60 section, includes electronic signs to guide drivers along at a variable but steady speed. Other technology includes an extra running lane in each direction along the M62 between junction 18 and junction 20 and CCTV cameras. The removal of narrow lanes and completion of the project will allow key sections of the M60