ITS Equant, a project managed by the Valerann and Excelerate Technologies consortium and funded by the European Space Agency’s Space Solutions, has been selected to deploy its traffic management solution with Milton Keynes Council.
The project’s space technology will be used to help local traffic authorities manage traffic surrounding the Milton Keynes (MK) Stadium during the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, which is taking place in England this month.
The event is expected to see an overall attendance of 525,000 people, with four of the games being hosted at the MK Stadium.
Large-scale events usually result in high numbers of pedestrians and passenger vehicles, which generate non-recurring road traffic congestion.
According to ITS Equant, properly managing movement and traffic by anticipating bottlenecks is critical for safety, efficient mobility, and emission reduction.
However, this can often be difficult without proper telecommunication capacities and adequate terrestrial communication infrastructure, which is said to be expensive.
For example advanced traffic management systems (ATMSs) have reportedly shown a 20% reduction in congestion and a 35% reduction in collisions, but deployments can cost more than £100,000 per kilometre.
The ITS Equant consortium claims to have developed a cost-effective satellite-enabled ATMS suitable for a range of deployments, from dense urban centres to rural communities.
The consortium claims that satellite communications-enabled CCTV cameras are a reliable source of road traffic data, which can be built upon by the AI-driven analytics platform and additional datasets to offer a comprehensive overview of a road in real time.
The additional data used by the system can come from floating cars, social media, mobile apps, and legacy sensors delivering a comprehensive overview of any road in real time.
“It is an honour to have the opportunity of working with our partners and Milton Keynes Council on this exciting project,” said Gabriel Jacobson, CEO of Valerann.
“We are pleased to see the use of space technology combined with our advanced real-time data analytics platform to enhance security and efficiency in road traffic management for this landmark sports event.
“This is an important milestone for all of us in bringing this innovative and cost-efficient solution to the market.”
