Transport Scotland has agreed on a five-year deal estimated at £47 million with Cubic Transportation for the delivery of ICT systems under the Traffic Scotland Contract (TSSC). Quadrant Transport looks at how intelligent traffic management systems can support Scotland’s roads.
Relying on intelligent transport systems, web-based information systems, supporting ICT and IP communications to collect and distribute real-time traffic information, the deal is aiming to manage the road network in Scotland.
The actual value of the contract, which includes options for two one-year extensions, will depend on the volume of work ordered.
Services Will Be Implemented To Manage Scotland’s Roads
Seeing ICT infrastructure supporting the management of Scotland’s roads, this deal is the second major contract in the past 12 months.
It follows the five-year deal which saw Transport Scotland awarding Mobility IBI Egis back in December 2021 with supporting the Traffic Scotland National Control Centre.
Cubic Solutions provides a range of services which include intelligent traffic management systems, fare collection and revenue management, and road user charging. These services could all be implemented to manage roads in Scotland.
Congestion Will Be Reduced And Road Safety Will Be Increased
Many countries like the US, Australia and the UK have developed intelligent traffic management systems. These systems help to detect the congestion area and according to it, this can help to reduce congestion.
To do this, it uses sensor data to analyse and synchronise on a real-time basis. It isn’t just congestion that will be reduced but safety from road accidents will be increased.
The traffic unit control gets information from the sensors and peripherals to identify congestion of traffic. Based on the detection, the system can take self-decisions and perform an operation to reduce said traffic.
In addition to this, the intelligent traffic management system can help traffic lights to operate in real-time conditions and will see traffic operated based on traffic congestion automatically.
Due to the deployment of the system, the chances of road accidents can be minimised and due to the good management of traffic flow, pollution can be reduced. This is because people can save fuel and due to fuel saving, a reduction in pollution follows.
Seeing technology like this implemented in our transportation networks will help us to reduce our emissions. This is essential if we are to meet our net zero targets as the Climate Change Committee revealed that in 2019 transport accounted for around 30 per cent of total Scottish emissions.