Highways England (formerly Highways Agency), the UK’s government-owned company responsible for managing and maintaining England’s motorways.
Road worker safety is a huge concern in the United Kingdom. According to Highways England, 15 workers were killed and 150 were injured on UK roadways between 2005 and 2011. In 2009, Highways England launched the Aiming for Zero initiative with the goal of making all aspects of the road worker environment safer.
Highways England is working to reduce the number of hours a worker spends on or near active roadways. The problem is intrusive inductive loops, the traditional method used for vehicle detection in the UK. A typical loop installation requires teams of workers to be in the road for several hours per loop. Because loops are buried in the ground, if any subsequent road work or lane position changes are required, then all loops need to be reinstalled. And loops have a high failure rate, so maintenance work means road workers will need to spend even more time in the road and in danger.
In early 2012, SmartSensor HD became the first radar detection device to receive certification from what was then the Highways Agency. After extensive testing, HA identified HD as a viable replacement for loops compatible with the MIDAS system as part of the four-stage MCH-1529 process. Today, there are more than 500 active HD installations in the UK.
“[SmartSensor HD] significantly reduces the time that staff spend roadside, both in overall duration and, in particular, for the placing and removal of temporary traffic management.”– DAVID BONN, HEAD OF ITS AT MOTT MACDONALD
SmartSensor HD installs above-ground on the side of the road, so there is no need to put workers at risk. One HD unit covers multiple lanes on both sides of a motorway, so a single HD unit can replace 20 or more loops. HD can be installed and configured in around an hour by one or two workers, and it can be easily reconfigured if road construction or lane placement changes occur. Finally, HD’s accuracies have been proven comparable to loops, but its long-term reliability means little to no regular maintenance is required.
In the January 2012 Europe edition of Thinking Highways magazine, David Bonn, head of ITS at Mott MacDonald said SmartSensor HD, “significantly reduces the time that staff spend roadside, both in overall duration and, in particular, for the placing and removal of temporary traffic management.”
