Intelligent transport system planned for Manchester

Date: 30/1/2013

A contract is currently being tendered by Transport for Greater Manchester that will see £15 million spent on an intelligent transport system for the city over the course of six years.

Under the Dynamic Road Network Efficiency and Travel Information System Solution, the management of the city's transport network will be improved.

This will be achieved through better administration and delivery of schemes across Manchester in an integrated manner.

Once the contract has been allocated, the provider will be expected to implement active traffic management on the highway network and put traffic signal priority measures in place.

Further to this, the new system will also include service performance management solutions and an operational control platform.

Integrated data from various sources will provide the backbone of the system with bus, tram, rail and highway services all having their operations monitored.

Information on the running of public transport as well as road activity data and that of the emergency services will be joined with material from closed circuit television cameras and automatic number plate recognition.

Passive sensors and automatic traffic counter data, event data, car park data and transport cost data will also be added into the mix in order to create a comprehensive view of travelling conditions in Manchester at any one time.

When a company has been chosen for the project, it will be responsible for the design of the system, its hosting and any software and hardware needed to operate.

Transport for Greater Manchester has outlined the requirements for a "multi-modal passenger information system", incorporating both static and real-time data, to be delivered over an "open source information exchange".

In terms of improvements for the end user, there will be a journey planning tool online, as well as mobile apps and messaging services for both mobile phones and the internet, so that they can be kept up-to-date on the transport situation.

Posted by Mary Treen

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