The Department for Transport is due to publish a list of councils that have won a share of £40m of new money to upgrade traffic signals by the end of March.
The Transport Technology Forum, which is administering the process, said it is hoping to make the announcement very soon.
The funds received ‘an unprecedented response from local councils, where nearly all those eligible applied either directly or through a Combined Authority, assessing the bids has taken longer than expected’.
Highways understands that a total of 80 highway authorities have won funding under the Traffic Signals Obsolescence Grant (TSOG) and the Green Light Fund (GLF).
All English councils and combined authorities outside London were able to apply for a share of £20m from each of two funds, with £10m of the TSOG distributed through the 2023/2024 highway maintenance block.
The money can be spent on solutions such as upgrading traffic signal systems, replacing unreliable and obsolete equipment to improve reliability, and tuning up signals to better reflect current traffic conditions and get traffic flowing.
Applications for a share of a further £20m of funding earmarked for the Intelligent Traffic Management Fund (ITMF) will open next month and guidance has been published to help bidders.
This money, which is expected to be delivered in packages worth around £2m each, gives authorities the chance to deploy advanced technology for traffic signals, using emerging technologies to optimise traffic flow and balance traffic across city centres.
The ITMF application process closes at the end of July 2024.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article suggested there had been a hitch in the announcement process. This was an unfair characterisation and Highways retracts this and apologises to the TTF team.
