On the right road to IT success

Denise Plumpton has been the Highways Agency director of information for over three years ­ – a key role in such a data-rich organisation. She talked to Computing about the challenges involved in the job.

How are you using IT at the Highways Agency?
Our main function is to collect real-time information from the roads and then give it back to the public through web sites, the media, radio and roadside signs.

We also use it to make decisions about how and where we need to improve road infrastructure, as well as looking at how quickly our officers can get to incidents, and how we can improve that.

How do you collect the information?
The information comes from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and loops under the road. The ANPR cameras create an electronic tag for each vehicle. It tells us the average speed of traffic and how reliable particular routes are.

We have 2,000 ANPR cameras, some of which are provided by private contractors.

The loops are mostly in traffic intensive areas around the M25 and Birmingham ­ – they can tell the speed and load of a vehicle.

How exactly do you use and analyse the data collected?
We use it in two ways. First of all we use it to identify less reliable routes, and to help us work out why that is.

Is it the junction configuration? Are there roadworks? Is it near a big event going on? Then we’ll respond accordingly. For example, for the Grand Prix at Silverstone last week, we turned the A43 into a one-way road.

We also take information on what state the road is in, and what roads need to be improved with what level of urgency.

The data helps us identify the less intrusive times to carry out roadworks on a particular stretch of road.

Is the process of distributing the information to the public automated?
Yes, mostly. We provide automated email alerts to media organisations which distribute the information through radio, web sites and television. They can also ring us up for more detailed reports. The faster this process, the quicker we can encourage people to take alternative routes and reduce congestion.

We also have 2,400 roadside signs around the country. When the loops detect speeds are below a certain threshold they trigger the “queue ahead” signs. These messages can be replaced with priority messages ­ – the number one priority message is “oncoming vehicle”.

But changing signs or alerts according to weather is more of a manual process. From October to April we have someone from the Met Office sitting in our national control centre, giving us interpretive updates on the severity of conditions.

One thing they can predict with the most accuracy is the wind – ­ that’s when we put out messages on the road signs to park up if it’s really bad.

We launched a new version of our dedicated digital traffic radio station earlier this month.

How have you changed the systems for providing these services since you came into the role?
What I looked at when I came was all the systems and databases in the agency. The shambles I found had taken years of making. There were lots of piecemeal systems all designed to solve individual problems, and none of them talked to each other.

We had 12 contracts running, and one or two were coming to a natural end so we pulled them all together into one managed service arrangement ­ – if we included sub-contracts it was actually more like 106 contracts.

We did ask ourselves if we wanted to bring it all in-house using civil servants to provide the IT, but decided against it. It would have been too many people to recruit, and we wouldn’t have got the quantity and calibre of the staff we needed.

IT consultancy Xantus helped us construct a £75m contract, analysing what services we needed and how to package them up. The contract was awarded to Atos Origin and went live last December.

What is your vision for the use of information in the organisation?
We want to convert all data into business intelligence. That will help us make better decisions with the information that we collect. We can then collect it once, but use it many times.

We’re also talking to two satellite navigation companies about providing them with real-time data, as well as providing information feeds for those who run the roadside services.

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