Highways News is back at the Transport Technology Forum Live conference at Hinckley Island in Leicstershire.

It’s a day of demos showing the latest in connected vehicle services.

We’ll update you on it all day.

9.40

We start with the Deputy Director of Traffic and Technology at the Department for Transport, Gavin James. He’s new to the role and this is his first TTF Conference, and he gives a keynote address.

Mr James began by explaining that he was new to the role, following his predecessor, Anthony Ferguson, whom he described as a key advocate for the Forum. He said it was his first visit and added that he was already struck by the value of the event, highlighting the strong mix of public and private sector attendees and the wealth of ideas being shared.

Reflecting on his background, he said he first met Anthony Ferguson around nine years earlier while working on telecoms in the railway sector and later setting up a digital service within the DfT. He explained that his current team is unusual in government because it brings together policymakers and delivery specialists, enabling them to both shape legislation and implement practical solutions. He added that part of his role is to communicate the sector’s priorities to ministers and generate political support.

He highlighted recent work, including legislation on pavement parking, and described the team’s “entrepreneurial mindset,” pointing to innovations such as the national parking platform and earlier successes like the UK’s multimodal journey planner, Transport Direct. He said government’s role is often to collaborate with industry to solve problems, then step back once solutions are established.

He also noted challenges, such as the unintended impacts of navigation technologies on local roads. He concluded by emphasising the importance of “connected local services,” adding that future innovation must remain open, collaborative, and focused on public good, before encouraging attendees to explore the technology demonstrations.

10.00

All the demonstrations begin.

The first group have gone out on three coaches to see connected vehicle demos both on the hotel’s perimeter road and on Leicester City and Leicestershire County Council roads. We’ll have footage from there soon.

Meanwhile, “under the bonnet”, companies behind the data are chatting to delegates about how it’s all gathered and used. There’s a real buzz about the place:

The companies involved in the demos are:

The companies involved are:

• HAAS Alert – showcasing Safety Cloud®
• Immense Simulations – simulating traffic scenarios
• INRIX – Signal Analytics
• AECOM and Kapsch – C-ITS Services
• MobileVMS – intelligent traffic management
• Portsmouth City Council and KL Systems – Digital Transport and Connected Vehicle Services
• Rennicks – Integrated Radar and HD CCTV
• SkyFarer and Coventry City Council – drone-supported incident response and network management
• SRL – REMOS remote monitoring and traffic signals management
• Standby Group – Emergency Services Blue Light Response
• SWARCO – AI Forecasting
• VESOS – eCall TeCall Alert platform
• Westcotec – Intelligent roadside technology

The whole of the Live element of the TTF Conference is supported by WSP.

The HAAS Alert software means data from the demonstrations is showing up on WAZE:

11.00

The TTF’s Connected Vehicle Services Lead, Andy Graham has spent more than three months putting the demos together, in partnership with KL Systems’ George Brown.

“After all this work that George and I have done, along with the superb support of all our demo partners, seeing it come together in the sunshine in Leicestershire is great,” he said. “We’ve had a variety of people from Traffic Wales to Portsmouth City Council supporting us too,” he added, “and the support of Leicestershire County and Leicester City Councils to use their roads brings it all to life. We’ve moved from PowerPoint to the real world showing connected vehicle technology in the here and now.”

Mr Graham stressed the value of the demos in “helping local authorities and the DfT see the technology that can make a real contribution to achieving the road safety strategy’s ambitions targets and we look forward to doing bigger and better demonstrations at next year’s ITS World Congress in Birmingham.”

11.19

We’re on one of the three coaches now to do the demo around the hotel perimeter road and then onto the local highways. We’ll take some shaky video and share it here, but Highways News’s videographer Luke Dudley and his colleague Matt are working for TTF this week to get footage for you and proper recordings will be shared in due course and we’ll flag it here on Highways News.

Industry veteran Steve George of SGTI is on the bus and says he’s thrilled to see how much he’s followed from concept over the decades is now happening and making a difference on the roads: “I think this event is great in showcasing the technology and what can be done, and we need to now work hard to turn all the brilliant concepts into standard features on our road networks – we have the concept and it needs to be widespread reality,” he tells Highways News.

Highways News’s Libby McMahon is our commentator on the tour:

And a taste of the tour:

There’s a demo of the AECOM/Kapsch solution on the perimeter road.

We’re now out onto the local road network with a number of live demonstrations. The video of all of them will follow, but here’s a taste as we see an example of GLOSA, Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory.

We’ve had bridge height warnings, roadwork alerts and speed limit advisories too – all this here and now on the network using data that is being generated through partners demonstrating back at Hinckley Island. Look out for the full video about it to come, but these videos are being uploaded as we’re on the tour (ain’t technology great!)

(All pictures and video – TTF)