An innovative asset monitoring and management system is now being introduced by Highways England to oversee road condition. The technology has been supplied by Mott MacDonald and its partner Fujitsu.
The Tools for the Technology Operations Capability (T-TOC) project provides a suite of software tools that monitor and manage electronic assets across Highways England’s network.
With nearly 100,000 intelligent infrastructure devices across Highways England’s strategic road network (SRN), the efficiency and reliability of their operation and maintenance is critical for the safety of Highways England customers and future infrastructure programmes. T-TOC enables a more efficient system of electronic traffic management, allowing Highways England to centralise operational decision-making, providing data that informs demand models, predicts future needs and identifies areas for investment.
Initial proof of concept (POC) for the project was delivered in 2019 assisting engineers responsible for maintenance of devices reporting from the Severe Weather Information System (SWIS).
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP), enhancing the POC followed, including several key interfaces to roadside management systems and provision of a mobile app (for maintenance engineers), realising a fully developed suite of tools and support service.
The MVP was successfully rolled out to the first of seven regions (North East) in January 2020 and received positive feedback. This demonstrated that intelligent incident management, along with use of a mobile app, saved engineers over four hours per day at roadside, minimising road-worker related risks by reducing the time they spend on the network.
Development and roll out of an ITIL-aligned Service Management capability to support the commencement of the Highways England operational technology service desk began in December 2020 with further roll out of the T-TOC Service to the North West and South West regions in November and December 2020. The four remaining regions joined in February 2021 completing the scheme rollout.
The service has provided the Highways England Technology Operations Capability (TOC) with the tools they need to perform asset and fault management functions for the Highways England estate of roadside operational technology.
Alison Mackenzie, Mott MacDonald’s project director, said: “Having successfully delivered traffic and infrastructure management technology for Highways England since 1998, we have a deep understanding of the critical role these tools have supporting the SRN. We’re proud of the collaborative, agile delivery approach we’ve developed with Highways England and Fujitsu to implement the T TOC system, ultimately helping to improve the performance and availability of SRN technology assets. This supports Highways England in meeting the requirements of the UK Government’s Roads Investment Strategy.”
Highways England senior project manager Janet Foreman commented: “With T-TOC successfully rolled out across all of Highways England’s regions this will mean safer, more reliable journeys for road users, as well as improved safety for those working out on the network.”
Mott MacDonald will provide support for the T-TOC system until 2023.
