Subscribe to Highways Voices free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts or Pocket Casts and never miss an episode!

“The Manual for Smart Streets is intended to provide guidance to support local authorities in implementing technology that supports traffic management and the operation of streets,” explains New Mobility Technology Integration expert Daniel Hobbs of the Connected Places Catapult on this week’s Highways Voices podcast. “Things like how traffic signals will develop to connect to vehicles in the future, how new sources of data can link into implementing other services in the local authority like information for how people should be around, providing a wider control and management of the network to the to the local authority.”

The initiative is by the Department for Transport and the Connected Places Catapult through the Transport Technology Forum. It is designed to complement the 2007 document the Manual for Streets, by helping local authorities enhance their network with the application of technology.

Daniel Hobbs is joined on the podcast by Darren Capes, ITS Policy Lead at the DfT who explains that it’s all about delivering efficiencies using what local authorities will already have. “It's not about nuclear powered space hoppers, it's not about the future,” he says. “It's about, in large part, how we do the jobs we do now better.”

The podcast discusses the ways equipment can be used better, how connected car technology is becoming a game-changer for authorities and why authorities with differing transport management capabilities will all be able to benefit.

This latest Highways Voices also hears the latest news from the industry and why connected vehicle start-up Eloy win this week’s Adrian’s Accolade.

Follow Highways News on Twitter, LinkedIn and subscribe to our daily newsletter here. Read more about the Manual for Smart Streets here.