Traffic systems engineers from across the Yorkshire and Humber region have revived the Yorkshire Signals Group, a regional forum intended to ‘encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing and professional development'.

With support from the Transport Technology Forum (TTF), the group was re-initiated by Joel Dodsworth, UTMC manager at Leeds City Council, with the inaugural meeting bringing together engineers from local authorities across the region to ‘discuss common challenges, exchange experiences and learn more about the work being undertaken by their peers'.

The TTF is ‘keen to see' if this model could be ‘replicated elsewhere' if it proves successful, with a longer-term ambition of developing a ‘blueprint' that could be adopted in other parts of the country to help regional groups ‘share knowledge and tackle common challenges together'.

To support this, the TTF has stated it plans to add a section to its website to share knowledge and ideas.

TTF manager, Darren Capes, explained: ‘There were some really good conversations around procurement and who is buying what. It was a very useful way of engendering collaboration and knowledge sharing across the region.'

With representatives from Barnsley, Bradford, Doncaster, Hull, Kirklees, Leeds, North Yorkshire, Rotherham, Sheffield, York and Wakefield in attendance, the meeting also provided an opportunity to bring together people at different career stages, allowing ‘long-serving' engineers to pass on their experience to the next generation of traffic signal specialists.

Mr Dodsworth added: ‘There was a Yorkshire Signals Group in the past. This is really about restarting something that hasn't happened for a long time and rebuilding that collaboration between traffic signals engineers.

‘My hope is that this forum will ultimately help to accelerate some of the development work around digitalisation of traffic signals asset and preparation for connected vehicles because we have the opportunity to learn from each other. We also intend to have a focused section on maintenance at future sessions because there are certainly some challenges there.'

‘As the group gains momentum over future meetings, it could become a template for strengthening professional networks among traffic signal engineers nationwide,' explained Kerry Winstanley, managing director of the Local Council Roads Innovation Group, which supports the TTF.

‘At a time when the sector is focused on attracting and retaining new talent while preserving valuable experience, new signals groups could prove to be a vital way to maximise their technology's value.'