Intelligent Transport Services

Our ITS team provide expert international consultancy in developing, managing, testing, evaluating and improving transport services through technology and communications.

More and more emphasis is being made on improving transport by making better use of existing networks through proactive control and better information. Technology and communications can also improve the services travellers, transport operators and freight managers receive.

Our ITS team has worldwide experience in developing and deploying these services. We have a wide range of skills ranging from policy and business case development through to feasibility study, design, deployment and installation. We also place great emphasis on evaluating the benefits and success of ITS, to ensure it adds value.

We have worked with many clients. In the public sector we have helped the Highways Agency, Department for Transport (DfT), Scottish Executive, Transport for London, and many other local authorities, as well as passenger authorities and other network operators including Transit New Zealand. In the private sector, we have worked for service providers, telecommunications operators, motor manufacturers, digital map makers and other companies with a need to understand the opportunities and pitfalls offered by the ITS business.

We have extensive experience in pan European projects, developing and managing the trans European projects STREETWISE and CENTRICO. We have also provided services directly to the European Commission. In doing so we have built up a wide reputation for our professional quality and established an excellent network of European partners.

Our highway work has not just been on the roadside. We have also developed in-vehicle services, particularly the RDS-TMC service deployed by our clients ITIS in the UK, for Toyota, Ford and BMW. We have taken this project from an initial public sector study right through to a commercial system with paying customers. We are also at the forefront of using floating vehicle data for network monitoring and congestion prediction.

With greater emphasis on managing road networks to achieve maximum capacity, improved safety and greater environmental compatibility, especially during incident conditions, our skills in traffic control and information are being used in many projects. Our long term development of Scotland's National Driver information and Control System (NADICS) led to one of the world' s largest traffic monitoring and information systems developed over the last ten years.

We have also been involved in the development of England's Traffic Control Centre (TCC) project and are now working on the M42 Active Traffic Management Scheme in the Midlands, bringing our expertise in ramp metering and operational regimes. Recently we have been examining for the Highways Agency innovative new ways of improving the management of its non-motorway network.

As new technology comes on line, it is important that policy dictates the solutions chosen and not the other way around. We are now advising the DfT on a strategy for co-operative vehicle highway systems (CVHS) and also on the benefits to be achieved from the adoption of ITS.

We consider ITS to be an important part of Integrated Transport, especially for Local Authorities to help then deliver their Local Transport Plans. We have developed ITS strategies for many authorities, have been heavily involved in the Urban Traffic Management and Control programme and manage the ITS Assist project which promotes the benefits of ITS to local authorities. We have also deployed ITS for local authorities for parking guidance and information, traffic congestion and weigh in motion.

We have a strong capability in smartcards and integrated ticketing for public transport - designing the SWWITCH service for concessionary travel in South Wales. We also have extensive skills in real time passenger information, project managing one of the largest systems in the UK for Centro, TWM and M3.

Our technical skills include development of ITS Standards, risk assessments, cost benefit appraisal and detailed design of systems. To meet the full range of opportunities joined up ITS has to offer, we work closely with other teams in Faber Maunsell to deliver a joined up service. These include quality bus systems, where we provide skills in smartcards and integrated ticketing. We work closely with our market research team in assessing the demand for and feedback on the services we deploy, as well as the traffic planning and engineering team on implementation of local schemes. Our system engineering and technology skills are an integral part of the road user charging specialism, and equally we call upon specialist skills from Information Technology and Communications (ITC) Engineering.

ITS is increasingly used for delivering transport policy such as managing demand and for monitoring the effects of other initiatives. We therefore work closely with the Transportation Planning specialism to ensure that ITS services deliver the policy needs of authorities, that their costs and benefits are clear and that the maximum use is extracted from the data that drives the services.

We also work closely with our freight team to develop new services to help the efficient movement of goods using technology.

Finally, we focus on real users and real services designed to fulfill the needs of stakeholders, we regard the technology as a tool to enable improved transport.

For more information on our experience and capabilities please contact Steve Tarry.