Traffic management in the city of Wolverhampton is set to be improved thanks to a collaboration between Wolverhampton City Council and SWARCO Traffic, the traffic technology specialist.
Swarco’s MyCity system, a modular platform that enables the council to monitor pollution levels, journey times and vehicle counts, has helped to streamline the city’s traffic management.
The Council has been working in close partnership with SWARCO on its MyCity solution since May 2019, shaping the product to meet the needs of a UK authority, as well as the specific needs of Wolverhampton itself. MyCity is a modular Traffic Management Platform for whole cities and can be managed on-premises or as a cloud-based solution operated by SWARCO. It performs the role of a ‘traditional’ traffic management system such as traffic signal monitoring and control, car park guidance and VMS management and journey time monitoring whilst enabling ‘new’ features such as EV charging management, micro-mobility, floating car data and air quality management.
The web-based modular setup of MyCity means the system can be tailored to suit the specific needs of individual towns or cities. The flexibility is such that it can be set up simply ‘as a service model’, and various functionalities and features can be easily added as they are needed to improve traffic flow and safety.
John Charles, Team Leader Road Safety & Sustainable Travel at Wolverhampton City Council, says MyCity provides a raft of information that is affording great control of the city’s traffic systems: With pollution monitoring that notifies us when NO2 reaches a certain level, vehicle counting for 19 different classifications – including motorbikes, public buses and taxis – a live map view of the congestion of routes and journey times, and in-depth reporting from millions of data points, we are provided with unsurpassed knowledge of how the network is performing. “This increased intelligence, enhanced communication channels and the ability to automate processes,” he says, “allows us to identify and respond more efficiently to incidents occurring across the City, making us better placed than ever to manage the highway network and support the regeneration of a cleaner, smarter city.”
John Pickworth, Managing Director at SWARCO Traffic, sees transformative potential in the easy-to-use system: “MyCity is open and able to interface with any existing solutions in a city. And, unlike some systems where you have to pay engineers for every new item to be added, new devices can be added at the click of a button, making this the ultimate traffic management platform.” SWARCO’s MyCity solution is also currently being implemented across cities globally.
