Highways Agency has signed an £8m deal with
Computacenter to provide the command, control and communications
services that support the country’s new traffic
officers.
Under the five-year managed service contract, Computacenter will
deliver a range of IT services in partnership with information and
communications technology specialist Vivista, to support the IT
infrastructure at the agency’s new regional control centres.
The seven centres are a core part of a new Highways Agency
service for England’s motorways, which is expected to reduce
congestion by 5% in the next five years.
Ian Chalmers, Highway’s Agency technology team leader for the
regional control centres, said, "Staff at the centres will be
responsible for a number of services that will help to manage
incidents and keep traffic moving on the country’s 4,800 miles of
motorway.
"As a result the systems they use need to be continuously
available and highly resilient."
More than 300 control centre staff will eventually use the
system, which will enable them to dispatch traffic officers to
incidents.
The command and control centre infrastructure is based on a
clustered Sun Microsystems and HP server back-end, which was
configured by Computacenter to ensure maximum resilience.
HP desktops are also being used by the control centre staff,
along with bespoke command and communications solutions from
Vivista. The 1,000 traffic officers will be equipped with Sepura
Airwave radio terminals.
All these technologies will be supported under the managed
service, which will go live in spring 2005, along with the first
regional control centre in the West Midlands.
"By partnering with experienced IT service providers, we are
able to reduce the risks and costs associated with managing the new
system," said Chalmers.
The Highways Agency developed the centres in response to
legislation passed last year, which gives the organisation and its
newly created traffic officers responsibility for managing traffic
on England’s motorways.