Fast track

The Highways Agency (HA) has given the go-ahead for a £490m telecoms infrastructure that will underpin a national network of advanced communications systems for the UK’s motorways.

While the HA currently has a pilot stretch of ‘smart road’ on the M42 in the West Midlands, the new initiative could see intelligent traffic management systems rolled out across the entire motorway network.

The contract for the National Roads Telecoms Services project (NRTS) has been awarded to Genesys Telecommunications, a consortium headed by engineering giant Fluor Corporation.

Early next year the consortium will begin replacing an inflexible communications network with an ultra-fast nationwide digital one, of the kind that is currently being tested on the M42. It is, claimed an HA spokesman, analogous to the move from dial-up internet to broadband.

The HA’s project leader for NRTS, David Raby, explained that the existing system has over 11,000 roadside devices connected to it. But these devices, which include CCTV cameras, variable message signs and wire loops embedded in the road to detect traffic congestion, are spread across 28 separate communication networks.