The Transport Technology Forum Conference, sponsored by Clearview Intelligence, brings together national government, local authorities, suppliers and academia to discuss government policy.
The event is being recorded and will be available online in due course.
This is Paul Hutton, here with a live blog from the event, updated frequently.
9.38
Darren Capes, TTF Manager, sums up the first day of the Conference.
9.48
Andy Graham of White Willow Consulting discusses a technical issue – DCIS – Digital Twinning Comes to Signals. DCIS stands for Digital Controller Interface Specification. It gives each signal controller a unique number, and counts the number of signals in the UK, plus the topology of each site and the control strategies and parameters applied at junctions.
This makes signal control data available in a uniform and open format. He runs through what Local Authorities need to do (and what they don’t need to do).
He then explains that each signal will have its own Simmonite Number, and says the guidance has been tested in seven different local authorities.
9.55
Next up we hear from Neale Ryan of Innovate UK on recent transport programme delivery.
He says a lot of his work is to do with decarbonisation but there is also a lot of work on digital solutions.
“If you take one thing away from me today, we don’t just provide funding – we have a range of ways we can help you on your innovation journey.”
He gives one example of what Innovate UK is doing – the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator working to understand the costs and merits of various technologies, based on real-world solutions.
There are four projects with £200 million funding, two of them among the largest grants given out by Innovate UK. There are 70 partners working on this.
He summarises the companies working with the project and he says they are finding that the solutions are as good, if not better, than their diesel counterparts.
He points to this site for more information.
He says that they are currently waiting for their funding for the next year, but says there are about 20 live competitions open now and encourages companies to engage with the organisation.
10.07
The last of the first session’s speakers is John Nightingale, Director of JCT to talk about the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium.
Darren Capes says that the Symposium is the main event for the sector when it comes to traffic signals.
John starts by saying, as someone who runs events, he understands how well this event has been organised, and there’s a round of applause.
He pays tribute to Brian Simmonite (as mentioned by Andy Graham) who was “a god of the traffic signals world” and “one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet”, and was the founder of JCT and the founder of the Symposium in Nottingham in 1996.
The first one was at Nottingham, with 121 people and 31 learned papers – four times the number of people expected.
He runs through the years and locations and why the Symposium is now moving to Leeds at the Royal Armouries. He says the first exhibition to go with the Symposium was in 2000 and that in Leeds there is more space than its previous location at Nottingham Trent University so more exhibitor opportunities are available.
He talks about the birth of magnetometers and video detection first shown at the exhibition and how you get to be hands-on at the event, and the learned programme of best practice sharing innovation and points to excellent speakers over the years including Rory Sutherland in 2023. He also talks about hundreds of videos and papers on site available free.
He says see you at Royal Armouries 23-25 September.
10.23
Break time now, back at 11.00.
11.00
And we’re back starting with a DfT cybersecurity policy update with Isobel Townsley, who is head of cyber at the Department for Transport.
She begins by explaining how cyber attacks can be a threat to transport, summing up attacks on the transport network, from connected vehicles to ports and the rail network.
She says motivations and methodologies vary from different attackers – states, criminals, terrorists, “hacktivists”, “script kiddies” and ideological.
She says good cybersecurity can mitigate the opportunistic – they might not care it’s transport but if you are an easy target they will go against people. Then there are targetted attacks, where people take an awful lot of time and effort to get in.
DfT approach to defending from cyber attacks have a digital information security team, plus a cyber team and modal resilience teams.
The team understands the threats and methodologies, regulatory policy, exercises and incident management and regulatory compliance.
Cyber challenges include poor risk understanding, variable levels of cyber maturity, supply chain vulnerabilities, continued investment, legacy systems and emerging tech such as AI and quantum. “Food for thought,” she says.
11.20
Next we discuss AI & Bridge Strikes: Using Technology to Protect Assets (Common Mission Project) with Jessica Cobbett of the DfT.
She starts by saying “I have definitely not solved bridge strikes”. She explains how the DfT has an AI team to solve challenges. The Hacking 4 Transport pilot is looking at a number of cases, to give fresh perspectives and innovative solutions.
They are looking to find more effective ways to monitor working conditions of drivers of large vehicles in order to reduce bridge strike frequency and improve road safety. Students interviewed 70 people to understand the issue, and that one issue was people could not read the height warnings, so the solution is not just to “add more signs”.
She finishes with a call for action to work withTTF and potentially an Innovation Working Group on the subject.
11.40
Paul Darlow from Portsmouth City Council talks about Crafting New Ideas into Service Deliverables on the Network – A Pipeline of Innovation.
He was inspired to use more technology solutions on his network after hearing ideas at TTF and so he talks about how they have built a digital model of public transport in the city – ferries, hovercraft and buses.
They look at ferry crossings because if the ferry isn’t running, that’s effectively a road blockage that causes traffic congestion in the city. By checking the ferry crossings, they can flag up issues much earlier.
Using BODS (Bus Open Data Service) data, they are looking for pinch point monitoring and alerting.
An interesting project is using BODS for bus stop announcements. This involves bus stops where people cannot see the bus until the last moment and do not request a stop in time. Instead of spending millions moving the bus stop, the technology monitors the movement of buses and plays a message on the bus stop a few seconds before the bus arrives so they are prepared to ask for it to stop.
Paul Darlow has created a digital model of traffic signals with real-time data from controllers, on-crossing detectors, bus priority requests and published faults. This gives sub-second latency.
This data can alert of faults, such as “stuck” lights, pedestrian demands (button broken or multiple, unexpected demands), and Portsmouth also use the on-crossing detectors to be traffic flow sensors, spot red light violations, unused pedestrian demands and traffic held at a red signal.
“We are solving real world problems – I look at the problem wearing my operator hat and then put my innovator hat on to work out how to fix it.”
He concludes by talking about being agile, having an ongoing effort with a flexible use of funds without deadlines and thanks George Brown of KL Systems for his support on the projects.
12.00
The Conference now takes a break from discussions to remember heroes on VE Day, 80 years on, joining the two minute silence.
12.02
Next we get an update about the 2027 ITS World Congress in Birmingham from Chris Lane of Transport for West Midlands.
He says this will showcase the UK to the world, it won’t just be a Birmingham-centric event.
Read more here:
12.20 – lunch break. Back at 2pm
14.06
James Drinkall from Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council talks about how his authority spent the grant it received from the Traffic Signals Obsolescence Grant money from the DfT.
They updated 24 sites, 14 of them along the A631 corridor, nine of them funded by TSOG. Rotherham worked with SWARCO to deliver the upgrades.
They used above ground detection and all sites were fitted with MOVA as standard. The AGD650 stopline detectors were used for cycle detection and bus priority, and Trafficam AI for general traffic detectors.
James demonstrates the improvement to junctions (using Clearview drone footage).
He says the programme finished in November 2024, on time and on budget. Found improvements in traffic flow and that they have saved more than £11,000 in energy costs and they saved nearly 10,000 kg of CO2. They have seen an initial 4% journey time improvement.
James says he’s “open to be a test bed and Rotherham is a blank canvas”. He says lessons learned are that early engagement meant they could deliver what was set out in budget, they got great support from AGD and Flir in setting up detectors. There were tight deadlines which on reflection could have been stretched further.
14.23
Paula Claytonsmith, CEO of LCRIG, now talks about innovation.
She says they are working with all authorities in England plus many in Scotland and Wales and that means LCRIG sees the patterns of what makes good innovation happen, where are the things that councils should be considering and more funding from government. “That is incredibly important to us,” she says. “So we have much wider reach now and we’re starting to a lot more work with National Highways.”
Paula Claytonsmith then summarises the largest ever LCRIG Innovation survey which heard from more than 50% of Councils and saw the largest ever response from LCRIG Corporate Members. She says this gave “concrete insights into barriers for” Highways Authorities and supply chain members around innovation most likely to be adopted and threats, plus emerging innovations councils most interested in and the support needed to help councils.
14.34
We move on now to an update for the TTF Guidance update around the Manual for Smart Streets and code of practice with Darren Capes, Gafoor Din from Warwickshire CC and Mark Cartwright of Centaur Consulting.
Darren Capes says one piece of work being done in MfSS is procurement guidance, work around UTMC as it is “reinvented” (see yesterday’s session) and rewrite of the code of practice for roadside electronic equipment. He asks for volunteers to join in this here.
Gafoor Din then talks more about the rewrite referenced above.
The review is almost complete, revisions will be carried out over the next 3-6 months then it will be finalised. He refers to it as a “significant piece of work”, but will benefit highway authorities and industry but requires input.
Then Mark Cartwright updates on the changes to UTMC governance. He talks about the three year time that UTMC has been under the TTF umbrella and its UTMC concept.
And the new work:
15.07
Now we’re moving onto understanding the economic impact of ITS in the UK with CEO of ITS UK, Max Sugarman.
He says ITS UK has been working on the value, and for a long time the estimation was £1.5 billion in economic value and £15 billion in potential, but this feels low. So they are doing a project to try to work out all transport technology as a whole.
“We have been working to understand how to come to a figure,” he says, and emphasises the importance because it’s “justifying why government should invest in transport technology”.
A company called Capital Economics is looking at defining the sector, the benefits and thus the size of the sector.
He says they are looking at the size of the sector to get the economic impact of the sector and they will be launching a survey in the next few weeks.
This will include detail on employee numbers, revenue, value by supply chain and investment by activity and this information will remain confidential. He says if you cannot answer all the information, then answer what you can because it’s vital to be able to deliver this to government.
15.20
And we finish with Darren Capes and Anthony Ferguson summing up the event, as Mr Ferguson gives his last address as Deputy Director at the DfT before retirement.
Darren says thank you to LCRIG for organising this event, the sponsors and exhibitors who allowed the event to be fully-funded for local authorities. He even thanks me and plugs all the reports we’ve run!
Mr Ferguson says “you’ve absorbed what you’ve heard” so he won’t say much more. But his reflection on TTF is that the big difference between the TTF that existed ten years ago and the TTF today, is that it has gone from meetings to conferences – a real forum, people coming together to discuss transport technology, and this is leading to delivering a network that works. “TTF has been a real metric on how the Department’s interest in technology has grown”.
TTF has got to a really good place. The objective is that at some point in the future the TTF isn’t needed because technology is mainstream. But that won’t be soon, he says.
Then Mr Ferguson bids farewell, as he prepares to retire in two weeks’ time.
(All pics – TTF)
