Intelligent Traffic Management

In summary traffic management impacts:

• Congestion – increased travel times & impact on economic urban prosperity.
• Ability to react & manage road accidents/incidents - causes significant changes in traffic volumes and traffic flows in the location or region affected.
• Management of temporary blockages – during planned and unplanned roadworks.
• Consistency of travel at different times of year or locations - such as school holiday periods and around retail centres at Christmas.
• Air pollution and noise – air pollution and noise affect quality of life in urban areas. Transport remains a source of harmful emissions of NOx, Particulates, CO2 and HC.
• Ability to use the full road capacity – for moving vehicles for example bus lanes.
• Road safety risks & protection of vulnerable road users – to manage road and weather conditions and traffic user variations from bikes and pedestrians to cars and HGV’s.
• Goods delivery – last delivery mile to facilitate loading & unloading of goods or people. 
• Enforcement – ability to achieve level of compliance to adequately manage traffic. 

Barriers for developing the smart traffic management systems are listed below:

Traffic operation & governance

Transport and the road network is overseen by DfT in England. In the UK, transport policy is devolved to regional bodies. In England, DfT manages transport policy, National Highways manage the Strategic Road Network (SRN) which are the motorways and major trunk A roads and local highways authorities are responsible for the rest of the urban and rural road network. 

The fragmented traffic management is illustrated in London with Transport for London responsible for Transport for London Route Network (TLRN) management. It also has responsibility for all signal installations in London, however non TLRN roads are the responsibility of the London Boroughs. 

Similarly, there are a lot of local highways authorities managing the regional roads with little interaction between them. 

Urban kerbside & parking

A strong influence on congestion in towns and cities is the use of the kerbside for parking and freight and parcel delivery drop offs and pickups. Providing flexibility for kerbside use and stronger TRO (Traffic Regulation Orders) application to provide suitable encouragement or enforcement will encourage the correct use. However, many TRO’s in the UK are still paper based which makes applying an automated system difficult. 

The kerbside is a dynamic and important part of an urban environment and directly influences congestion and hence should be considered part of a traffic management “system”.

Temporary traffic management systems

In addition to the installed traffic management systems there are many temporary traffic controls used across the country to manage local highways repairs, incidents and other short term highways obstructions. Although supported by data through Street Manager and visible through network tools such as ONE NETWORK, temporary traffic signals can disrupt the established traffic management network.

Supporting freight

The efficiency of freight and parcel delivery is a key consideration to economic prosperity and the efficiency of the roads. The number of vehicles supporting carriage and delivery has been increasing in the UK over the last few years with parcels home delivery significantly expanding causing added congestion in urban environments. Congestion at ports for heavy goods vehicles such as Dover have also hit the headlines with considerable queues and waiting times, costing freight companies time and money. 

Data

Smart traffic management systems collect and analyse live traffic data including the movement of cars, vans, trucks and cyclists. 

Data sharing and standardisation to enable seamless operation across local authority and road network operators is difficult due to the historical setup and use of different traffic management systems across local authorities. This has resulted in different data and discrete and separate data repositories across the UK highways authorities which has inhibited data sharing and made larger regional traffic coordination centres such as those established in the W Midlands, West Country and TfL difficult and time consuming to setup.

Device connectivity 

The ability to deploy and connect devices across the road network relies on fibre and mobile connectivity. Patchy connectivity across the road network is an inhibitor to wider deployment of IoT and traffic management devices with rural connectivity having significant areas of poor connectivity (see UKTIN “road connectivity” toolkit). 

Acknowledgement:

Connected Places Catapult for input and access to many insights from their SMART STREETS study, published in 2023. DMI (Dutch Metropolitan Innovations) for access to the work being done in the Netherlands with “Talking Traffic” via their website. 

The need for ubiquitous and robust 5G across the road network to enable this capability is covered in the ROADS connectivity advisory toolkit.

While conventional traffic management systems include roadside equipment providing information to traffic control centres, a growing number of other inputs are available from devices and vehicles. AI is also providing the ability to refine the data at source or in the cloud to enable more insights to be developed. 

Smart phones that travellers carry with them and have in their vehicle can be used as sources of information/data and their displays used to relay advice and information to a driver.

The Co-operative Intelligent Transport systems (C-ITS) platform now have a significant body of standards and technical specifications covering traffic management systems. Standardisation and recommendations for the future are outlined in DfT’s data strategy document from 2023 Transport Data Strategy.

There is a big opportunity to improve road safety and traffic management and road efficiency using shared vehicle data. Vehicle data shared with road users and operators will locate hazards from roadworks and debris to stationary cars and traffic. Vehicle data can also help to share local environmental issues such as ice, flooding and accidents where an airbag has been deployed (accessed through e-call). Modern vehicles are lots of useful data as they move around the transport system. Vehicle data can be assimilated via a data platform and then shared using location relevant messaging to in-vehicle devices (installed or mobile). 

It is expected that the UK will remain aligned with European regulations and standards regarding V2X (vehicle to everything), wireless communication between the vehicle and any other entity the vehicle may interact with. In Europe ETSI are leading the development of data standards for the application of these technologies to C-ITS which are termed C-V2X (cooperative vehicle to everything). 

5GAA (5G Automotive Association) is a consortium representing the mobile telecoms, technology and motor industries (setup in 2016) and has been working on solutions for “future mobility and transportation” focussed on C-V2X. 

Europe designated 5855-5875MHz and 5875-5925MHz for use by road ITS in 2023 with a neutral technology assumption. China, USA Korea and India have defined C-V2X spectrum, with China leading the rollout; 20 cities are now designated for implementation of C-V2X in 2026.

In the UK, DfT have been working to standardise various road data to make it discoverable and enable sharing. This will help road authorities operate more efficiently and share the data to others. This allows new technologies to be developed from accessible data sets. Some key initiatives underway include:

• “National Parking Platform” (NPP), National Parking Platform  will provide a single parking interface for drivers and parking operators.
• “Street Manager” for roadworks, data associated with roadworks Street Manager.
• Traffic Management System (National Highways) sharing planned works, delays or congestion data. Enables road condition modelling, regional traffic coordination and journey planning. (Digital Roads - National Highways, Technology Strategy 2035)

The Netherlands started a comprehensive initiative in 2016 to introduce a transport and traffic platform called “Talking Traffic”. Existing traffic signals have been converted to be intelligent and “connected”, with the ability to exchange data with smartphones and satellite navigation systems. Data sharing standards have been created so information is presented in the same format allowing a single interface 

for the user, which works across regions. This enables road operators to buy hardware from one supplier and products from other suppliers, supporting innovation and business. The heart of this platform is the Urban Data Access Platform (UDAP) which provides a fast and reliable data exchange ( Technology behind Talking Traffic ).

5GSA (Stand Alone) which has higher mobile comms speed and data throughput is starting rollout in the UK through the Telecoms Network Operators. Edge computing will also be available where needed, which provides faster data throughput and processing and cloud-based services allowing widescale sharing of outcomes complete the key ingredients for future intelligent traffic management. These are the transformative enablers which automotive and the traffic operators need to deliver the services described.

Initiatives underway and recommendations:

• It is important that road authorities and service providers should make high-quality data available in standard format that is easy for service providers to access supporting products and services and encouraging innovation. Ensure published standards are used for interfaces wherever possible to maximise the potential for integration and consumption of the published data building on the DfT data strategy. 
• Review the data and the data platform needed to fully cover parking, roadworks, traffic, traffic signals, vehicle data associated with road conditions and safety. This study should consider the comprehensive set of data required from the road network to characterise the infrastructure and road users. This builds on initiatives already started as listed above. A full list of data required to enable the future intelligent traffic management system will enable a gap analysis to compare data already available vs that required. A roadmap can then be provided to align with the Integrated National Transport System (INTS) being developed. Assessing this against the requirements of the ITS directive will provide alignment with Europe. This task although led by DfT should include DSIT.
• Provide support for providers to trial new services enabled by the data described above. To continue to develop capabilities in real-world environments and provide a supportive environment for business and highways authorities to develop together. This may be a region and city in the UK. This region should align with that suggested in the ROADS connectivity advisory toolkit where ubiquitous and robust connectivity is available.

Collating the extended data sets from vehicles and other devices and using AI to analyse and adapt to traffic and road situations offer improvements not currently possible in fixed traffic assets and fixed control regimes. Using AI to intelligently control traffic and inform drivers should be closely aligned to the AI initiatives and investment recently proposed by central government.

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Image courtesy of 5GAA

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Netherlands “Talking Traffic” courtesy of DMI (Dutch Metropolitan Innovations)

A summary of the extent of the road network and who is responsible for operating it in the UK, is shown below:

Road network in UK – key statistics

• 245,700 miles of public roads (Road Lengths in Great Britain: 2020 - GOV.UK)
• Most roads (by length) are managed by local highway authorities. These include principal roads, all minor roads (‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads) plus some major roads.

• 9,500 miles of strategic road network (SRN, made up of motorway and trunk A roads)

  Road Authorities in UK - operators

• 153 local authorities in England, 32 in Scotland, 22 Wales, 11 N Ireland (road operators)
• 11 combined authorities (road management oversight and some transport operations) England
• 4 Strategic Road Network operators, National Highways in England, the Welsh Government in Wales and Transport Scotland in Scotland. In Northern Ireland there is the Regional Transport Strategic Network (RTSN) managed by the Department of Infrastructure.

The impact of congestion and traffic control measures are illustrated below: 

Congestion, traffic flow & safety

• London has the longest traffic delays in Europe of 101 hours lost per road user (£942 per driver), with the cost of congestion in the UK worth £7.7bn (£581 per driver), according to INRIX (2024 Global Traffic Scorecard).
• “A huge proliferation in traffic regulations over the past twenty years has imposed a heavy burden on the economy. Just a two-minute delay to every car journey equates to a loss of approximately £16 billion every year, equivalent to almost 1 per cent of GDP.” Institute of Economic Affairs.

• Over 50% of road deaths and serious injury in the UK happen at junctions ( 2023, Road safety statistics: data tables - GOV.UK, RAS0503).

  Costs to freight & logistics

Over 60% of road freight travels on motorways and trunk roads and tends to cover all times of day and night. In urban areas with peak freight deliveries frequently occurring in the morning, this impacts congestion Future-of-Freight. According to WSP’s 2018 study congestion was estimated to cost the freight industry £3.7billion annually.

• Road Haulage Association (RHA) estimates it costs a haulier £130 per hour per vehicle that is stationery in traffic (The Future of Roads Report - RHA). “Congestion accounts for 16% of the current cost of running an HGV due to lost productivity. It is estimated that 35% of HGVs trips will be delayed in 2050 without mitigation”. 
• Queues to ports and especially Dover have been a regular occurrence with the A20 and M20 being used as a lorry holding park many times (Dover: Council will declare 'major incident' if travel disruption persists - BBC News).
• Connectivity enabled route planning, navigation and delivery optimisation reduces empty return runs and avoids HGV inappropriate routes being selected.

Traffic signals

• There are an estimated 33,000 traffic signals in UK (actual numbers unclear but rising).
• Intelligence in traffic signals reduces traffic delays. They can operate at individual junctions (e.g. MOVA) or at a series of junctions and can respond to changing traffic conditions (e.g. SCOOT) resulting in improvements of ~15% (SCOOT® - TRL).

• Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) has been shown to offer improvements in journey time as well as fuel consumption (Interregeurope)

  Active Traffic Management (ATM) systems on motorways using roadside and gantry signs

• Congestion management using variable speed limits to smooth traffic flow and reduce the likelihood of sudden braking and acceleration.
• Lane management to open or close lanes including the hard shoulder
• Incident management providing information to drivers and emergency services, to clear accidents more quickly and reduce congestion.
• Work zone safety improve by lowering speed limits in work zones.

The Department for Transport is forecasting up to a 55 per cent increase in traffic by 2040 and up to 85 per cent increase in congestion levels (Congestion-report_LocalGovtAssoc). 

The impact that traffic management systems have is significant. Advances in devices, connectivity and data provides the opportunity to enhance the vehicle or driver decision making in congestion mitigation and improving safety through the use of Intelligent Traffic management systems of the future. 

The ability to provide road hazard and status information via mobile communications to connected cars and devices in rural and urban environments will significantly improve convenience and safety in a way not otherwise affordable. National Highways for example, spends £10’s of thousands on each gantry for information and traffic management systems, this is not affordable at scale on the rest of the road network.

The Netherlands “Talking Traffic” platform is using intelligent traffic signals, information shared via the smartphone or built-in navigation, via an urban Data Access Platform (UDAP) and is using existing mobile telecoms. The cost benefit is cited below from DMI (Dutch Metropolitan Innovations): 

““An important development within Talking Traffic is that road users not only communicate with each other, but also with the infrastructure. And that with a delay of a maximum of one second. Within Talking Traffic, intelligent traffic control systems (iVRIs) know which cars, cyclists and buses are approaching them. This makes it possible to coordinate traffic flows more efficiently with dynamic traffic light controls. iVRIs can also 'prioritize' and give certain traffic flows priority, i.e. green light earlier or longer, over others. It saves braking and acceleration and therefore time, fuel and CO2 emissions, as well as money. It has been calculated that there is an annual social cost of €90 million because not all traffic lights are adjusted often enough. With new iVRIs, this is done continuously and automatically. Thus, the investment quickly pays for itself.”

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Images & data courtesy of INRIX (2024 Global traffic scorecard)

Quantitative Benefits

• Traffic delay management for private and public transport (also reduces the pollution)
• Journey time reliability for all transport modes
• Improved road safety, reduction of traffic accidents
• Reduced road traffic collisions response time and recovery time
• Reduced operational costs through renewals or new technologies
• Goods delivery systems implementation reducing delays for service and goods delivery vehicles
• Reduction in air pollution and noise
• Improved road management and traffic flow prediction
• Optimised freight operations

Shared sensor data, wider use of alternative forms of traffic data and integrated traffic and roadside systems can potentially achieve much wider benefits. 

• Traffic monitoring for congestion control also provides input to digital twins so the use of roads junctions can be characterised, road user behaviour modelled and insights in to journeys across the road network understood e.g. Vivacity AI cameras. This modelling helps manage traffic, establish safety improvements, plan future roads and active travel lanes, knowing how people and traffic will behave and interact.

Intelligent and dynamic roadside bay reservations allow freight and parcel delivery while also making better availability of kerb parking and enabling taxi and autonomous car pickup/drop offs in the future. This also ensures consistent implementation of kerbside regulations. These joined up services using a common set of sensors result in better air quality, safety, support for urban pedestrianisation and reduction in vehicles looking for parking, lowering congestion. 

The Netherlands “Talking Traffic” which is a large scale intelligent traffic management system is described by DMI as providing :

• Smarter use of mobility, travel times can be further reduced and traffic flow improved.
• Savings in travel time, fuel and costs contribute to the congestion relief and sustainability.
• Extra comfort on the road as you always know where you stand.
• Improving road safety through early warning, keeps attention on traffic and making the right choices at times that matter. 

Further benefits are defined in the Executive summary ( Executive-Summary-NGF-proposal-dec-2022)

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Image courtesy of Manual For Smart Streets    Traffic Management - TTF

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Image courtesy “Manual For Smart Streets”

Intelligent Transport System Organisations

ITS UK is a national organisation “to support the roll out of technology for a cleaner, safer and more effective transport network, both at home and abroad. They do this through advocacy to policy makers, connecting people and organisations, promoting the industry overseas and supporting innovation across the intelligent transport ecosystem”. ERTICO is the European umbrella organisation providing collaborative across Europe.

Roadworks

Current and planned temporary roadworks across the UK is available through a central database from One Network (Causeway one.network) which provides a single source of data which road operators subscribe to. New data sources will be channelled using the Street Manager.

Studies implementing smart traffic information in UK include:

• Serv City - CAV vehicle operation was tested in an urban environment with 1,600 autonomous miles driven. Vehicle testing environment uses open roads which have connected technology and monitoring services, located in London Borough of Greenwich. Cameras and sensors installed on the infrastructure supported navigation of the connected autonomous vehicle Traffic Management - TTF  
• Selective vehicle detection implemented by TfL for local buses. System detects and changes traffic signals to prioritise bus movements through the junction. As on June 2023 there were close to 2000 sites in London using iBUS selective vehicle detection system Transport for London 

Traffic signal controls were demonstrated over several trials in the UK:

• GLOSA (Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory) in York and in Coventry (UK CITE)
• The PATH project for traffic signal monitoring using floating vehicle data across 11 UK Authorities
• Real time optimiser by TfL TfL & Yunex upgrade to London's traffic signal system   
• The A2M2 connected corridor and InterCor operations
• The FLOURISH C-ITS trials in Bristol

Useful reference documents:

• Strategic Road Network strategy issued by National Highways in March 2020 Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2): 2020 to 2025 - GOV.UK . The next RIS publication is due in 2025 to cover the period up to 2030.
• ISO provides a number of intelligent transport systems standards by ISO technical committee 204 ISO/TC 204 - Intelligent transport systems 

Netherlands “Talking Traffic” summary (Technology behind Talking Traffic - DMI ecosystem)

Traffic light information does not require a new car: any car of any make, any navigation system and any smartphone can be connected to any intelligent traffic control system from any supplier. All technology and interfaces conform to international ETSI standards (SPaT, MAP, CAM, SRM, SSM, DENM). Technology and interfaces are internationally ETSI standardized and therefore independent of suppliers of iVRIs, smartphones and cars.

Characteristics of an iVRI:

• Telecommunications - The traffic light is connected through the regular cellular telecommunications network;
• Technology and regulations - Technology and controls (hardware and software) are decoupled
• Real-time traffic situation - Schemes are maximally tailored to real-time traffic conditions
• Data for information services - An iVRI provides data (such as time to green) for information services (for road users)