Modelling and simulation software company PTV Group will introduce the traffic signals community to its first piece of traffic detection hardware in Europe at the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium in Nottingham next week.
As part of the integration with its sister company Econolite, the sensor EVO RADAR has been successfully trialled in in South Gloucestershire.
“It’s a great radar, and performs better than others I’ve used,” commented Integrated Traffic Services Managing Director Dan Preece, who ran the trial. “The distance is phenomenal on it, you can see up to 300 metres, and the field of view is seriously impressive. It can also see stopped vehicles up to 80 metres. The EVO RADAR outperformed expectation on site.”
The EVO RADAR detects vehicle movements, as well as pedestrians and cyclists. The data gathered can then be ingested into PTV modelling software and analysed to simulate any potential changes that could improve traffic flow and make things safer and easier for active travel.
“I know PTV have got projects out where they are influencing signal timings via data that they’ve collected, so the EVO RADAR would be another link within that,” Mr Preece added. “Also, I think in the industry there’s a lot of desire to have richer detector data.”
PTV and Econolite, which merged last year under the Umovity brand, are now actively harnessing the synergies of their market-leading technologies: PTV’s experience of traffic modelling and simulation together with Econolite’s intersection control and traffic detection expertise.
“This is a very exciting moment for PTV in the UK,” explained UK Managing Director Devrim Kara. “For decades we have been trusted to simulate the movement of traffic and people from a single junction to an entire city, but until now our customers have needed to source the traffic detection equipment elsewhere. Now we can provide both traffic data collection and interpretation and I’m looking forward to showing this off at the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium.”
“The EVO RADAR has an interesting estimated time of arrival function,” Mr Preece added. “I’m looking at investigating if it may be possible to tweak the detection dynamically based on the speed of the vehicles arriving. There are many ways we can refine traffic control through using the richer data streams available from radar. This will allow us to be more intelligent with how we control signals. Control can be further enhanced using products such as the PTV suite of software to do number crunching off site, and then pass this information live between signals on a network, so that we have wider base control of signals, with signals still acting on the local level but with nudges to refine control across the network.”
When the two businesses came together to form Umovity, executives explained that combining PTV & Econolite end-to-end technology serves as true One Stop Shop for smart and sustainable mobility solutions, both hardware and software. The company’s joint Mobility Tech Suite covers everything from transport planning and prediction to on-site traffic management.
“Since the two businesses came together we’ve been working on traffic management and modelling solutions which will inevitably lead to more efficient intersections and safer roads for everyone,” Mr Kara concluded. “At the moment, we don’t know where our new business will end up, and that is the most exciting aspect – the sky’s the limit.”
Mr Preece, and PTV Technical Director Michael Oliver, will both be speaking at the MOVA User Group ahead of the Symposium on Tuesday 10 September and PTV Group will be exhibiting and answering questions during the Symposium itself.
PTV will also be showing its new software product PTV flows, which is a cost effective cloud-based software for visualising problems on the road network and detecting unexpected conditions, and that’s all in real time. In effect, PTV Flows can be used by traffic controllers to spot traffic jams before they happen, and then use their ITS solutions to mitigate the effect, effectively reducing jams’ formation.
The JCT Traffic Signals Symposium at Nottingham Trent University takes place Wednesday 11 and Thursday 12 September, with the first evening social event and the free MOVA User Group, which has seen more than 80 people sign up, taking place the day before. To join local authorities, academics and suppliers at the event, click here.
(Picture – Umovity/PTV)
