Mott MacDonald has been appointed by five councils in Tyne and Wear to refresh their regional urban traffic management and control (UTMC) system.
The engineering, management and development consultancy will deliver the latest version of its Osprey UTMC product, which it said includes significant improvements to strategic planning and reporting tools.
The firm said the upgrade will help the five councils support their main policy objectives of improving safety and air quality, network monitoring and offering informed travel choices, as well as incident and event planning and management.
Craig Morrison, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: ‘We are looking forward to working with the Tyne and Wear local authorities to enhance their Osprey functionality, such as dashboard views, historic data display and strategy implementation.
‘This will make it easier for their control room operators to implement actions to improve traffic flows, which in turn will reduce congestion for the benefit of commuters within the region.’
The existing Tyne and Wear UTMC system, which Mott MacDonald has provided since 2010, monitors the busiest and strategically most important parts of the region’s road transport network. This accounts for over 750,000 vehicle movements per day and more than 11,000 incidents, collisions and events annually.
The project will be delivered over multiple phases. Initial implementation of the new Osprey system is due for completion in early 2018, with further phases to be completed by the end of the year. The contract also includes an additional five years of system support until 2023.
The five authorities covered by the deal are Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland. A spokesman for Mott MacDonald declined to state the value of the contract.
In October, councils under the North East Combined Authority, which also includes County Durham, said they planned to spend £3.64m upgrading traffic management technology to sit under the UTMC, backed by £2.8m from the Government’s National Productivity Investment Fund.
