The Sales Director for UK and Ireland at transport technology and intelligent mobility solutions provider Kapsch has told Highways News participation in last week’s Department-for-Transport-led Transport Technology Forum conference has really boosted his company’s profile in the UK.
Tim Wray worked with consultancy AECOM to demonstrate how European C-Roads standards could be brought to the UK. These standards are designed to help make roads “talk”, by enabling vehicles, infrastructure, and traffic systems to communicate with each other to improve safety and efficiency.
Kapsch and AECOM demonstrated to the TTF Live delegates real-world examples of deployments in Ireland, Austria and Germany. This showed European standards and C-Roads specifications delivering messages directly to drivers including in-vehicle signage, roadworks warnings and hazardous location notification.
“Thanks to the unique TTF Live format, with a conference and real-world demonstrations taking place side by side, we could illustrate how the C-Roads concept could be deployed in the UK,” Mr Wray (pictured among the demonstration equipment and services) said. “It was a fantastic opportunity to let people see a range of connected vehicle services all in one place, and we very much enjoyed working with like-minded businesses in intelligent transport to bring here and now concepts to life on the conference hotel’s perimeter road and onto local roads around Hinckley.”
Working with White Willow Consulting and KL Systems, delegates were taken on a half-hour bus tour showing technology using in-vehicle messaging to warn of floods and low bridges, pedestrian crossings and nearby emergency vehicles as well as green light optimisation and eCall alerts.
“What I also liked was that the organisers invented the “engine room” where delegates could find out the technology behind the data,” Mr Wray added. “So they didn’t just see it happening, but they found how it happens, and my colleagues Stefan and Heinz did a great job of sharing what goes on “under the bonnet” and understand what it means for helping deliver a safe, clean and efficient highways network for all kinds of users. We were really impressed with the whole of TTF Live and will definitely be back next year.”
(Pictures – Kapsch)
