National Highways has signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) with the European Space Agency (ESA) aimed at supporting ‘the development of innovative and sustainable space-based applications' to improve road safety.

The strategic road authority has partnered with ESA's Business Applications and Space Solutions (BASS) team to back their Road and Traffic Safety funding call.

Those interested in submitting a funding application have until 27 November to request financial support for projects that utilise space-based products and services that can help reduce accidents with better traffic management, incident detection and predictive safety solutions.  

One example given was possible space-based tools that could significantly improve the cost-effectiveness, efficiency, frequency and precision of data required for the IRAP surveys, which rate the inherent safety of a road design and layout.

Industry representatives, including ones from National Highways, helped the ESA identify other use cases that were ‘key areas of interest':

  • Enhancing information exchange
  • Improving road design, signage and maintenance to reduce accidents
  • Improving road safety by optimising traffic flow
  • Implementing measures to protect non-motorist road users
  • Improving International Road Assessment Programme (IRAP) survey completion

Maria Zaretskaya, business development and partnerships officer at ESA, said: ‘We are delighted to be working with National Highways to explore how innovative space-based applications can support the future of the UK's road network. By combining expertise from the space and transport sectors, we aim to support the development and demonstration of space-based solutions that address real-world challenges in land transport and deliver benefits for the wider transport sector and society.'

Nick Joyce, interim chief executive at National Highways, added: ‘Safety is our number one priority, and we are exploring every route possible to keep drivers on our roads safe. Research and innovation play a crucial role in that. Our partnership with the European Space Agency enables us to embrace broader technology to improve road safety.

‘Satellite communications and earth observation will help us make better proactive and preventative decisions which will improve our ability to identify risks on our roads and better understand the condition of our network.'