In this episode, join Project EDWARD at the Highways UK Exhibition in Birmingham where Max Sugarman from the Intelligent Transport Systems (UK) connects with industry experts Vivi Michalaki of National Highways, Geoff Collins of Acusensus and Rodney Moffat of Amey. Together, they explore the pivotal role technology plays in enhancing road safety for everyone. Tune in to discover how these innovators are shaping the future of safer roads through cutting-edge solutions.

My role in the Safe System. This episode is presented from the Highways UK Exhibition by Max Sugarman.

Hello, I'm Max Sugarman. I'm Chief Executive of Intelligent Transport Systems UK, the Industry Association for Transport Technology. And I'm delighted to be, joining this project, Edward Podcast. To talk about the safe system and the role that transport technology plays in it. We have a great lineup to talk to you about all things transport, technology and road safety.

We've got Vivi Machalaki from, National Highways, Geoff Collins from Acusensus and Rodney Moffat from Amey to talk about all different aspects of technology on the roadside. So I'm gonna first, first of all ask, each of our panelists to talk about what they see, their role, from their organization and also from, from their perspective on transport technology, what their role is in the safe system.

So, if I can start off, with Rodney, coming from a, a consultancy and design background, uh, our involvement really is, is in the collection of information, the understanding and analysis of data, the use of that data to influence design and the use and application of technology. To hopefully influence behaviour.

And Geoff, if you can come in here. Um, hello everyone. The, I very much view my role has been related to technology and how technology can be used as part of the safe system, and that fundamentally is around influencing the road user. Not necessarily the driver, but the road user. And so technology, . Not only that can detect certain behaviors, but can encourage changes in behavior because that's the way that the, the safe system will work better is when people understand what is needed of them and then they can deliver behaviors that actually make the, the highway more efficient, safer, and more effective.

So I think that's very much the position of technology supplies like myself to help deliver the the safe system. Last but not least, Vivi National Highways operate of the Strategic Road Network, a huge asset in, in England. What's your role within the Safe system? Thank you, Max. I think it's, it's important to, to highlight that national highway safety is our number one imperative.

So there's key in everything that we do throughout the lifecycle of all the work that we do, all the way from design to operations and, and maintenance, from, from my perspective and my role, um, as the head of intelligent transport systems and mobility hours. Focus is more around how we can use technology solutions and data to help, uh, people on one side and support them in increasing their safety, and also from the manufacturer's side vehicle side.

So this is our, our main focus in terms of providing a safe system. So I want to start off by kind of looking at . What technology is on the network? 'cause I'm sure there'll be a, a range of, uh, um, levels of knowledge and people might see on the roads that, uh, safety cameras and, and other, uh, equipment. But there's, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes too.

So, Vivian, if I come back to you, what, what's the type of technology that is keeping people safe on the road Network. We have multiple systems operating at the moment. It, they're mainly focused on motorways. Um, for now at least I will say. So these are, uh, focusing on things like detecting cues, for instance.

So informing drivers when there is a queue ahead, and that is to avoid a secondary incident for from happening. Also detecting breakdowns and, and stopped vehicles. This has been an active system for the past, uh, few years. And that focuses on, on people that, um, do stop on a live lane or in emergency area, uh, where, where these exist.

And then informing our operators in the control room that there is an incident happening. Then we need the manual intervention, that that's how the system operates, where the operators do check through the, the CCDV, the the cameras available on the network, see what the incident occurred is, and take appropriate action.

So either close a lane or set the proper speed limits to again, warn the drivers that there is an obstacle ahead. The drivers who are using the roads will see the things that are going on in the real time that they're driving. But there's also been a lot of thinking behind the scenes as to how the road system works and to make sure it's as safe as possible.

Uh, maybe I come in here and, and, uh, and, and just talk a bit, uh, about this, Rodney, about how we plan for, for the safest roads possible. Yes, and I I think it's, it's quite an important feature. Obviously there, the road network's developed over a, a number of years and standards change. We learn lessons from driver behavior that influences how we implement horizontal and vertical alignments to get the best outcome.

I think it's really important though, that when we look at roots, we still revert back to that inherent human behavior that humans want to experience the same flow. We need to look at that roots strategy so that the, the rhythm of the road is something that people can predict. There's not an enhanced or an significant improvement in one section and a.

Back to in the next section. I think it's important that we look at the overall aspect and try and find a way of delivering that same behavior so that drivers understand and predict what's coming up. Roddy, could you, could you give an example of, um, where you've successfully achieved that to deliver a better outcome?

I suppose in projects we've. I've been involved with personally. Um, we've seen development schemes along the, the A96 in Scotland, the A66 in England, where again, the nature of the road is such that sections of be dual sections three remain single carriageway. And the, the, the projects have been implemented to really take the learning from what's occurred and look at applying a standardized design solution across the entirety of the length.

The, the difficulty with any of these types of schemes is . Uh, ensuring and allocating funding to ultimately deliver the outcome. But equally, the, the plan and thinking has been there from the, initially from the client bodies and from the solutions that can be delivered. Geoff, if I can bring you in here, uh, enforcement is...

Really kind of the last thing you want to do. You want to be encouraging people, but unfortunately for some cases it is necessary. What, what are the type of things that are the enforcement community's looking at in terms of how we improve safety on the network? I think you're right. Enforcement is and should be the last resort.

But I, I view that there's, there's a, there's a gentle lead in to making, uh, an enforcement operation rather than suddenly coming in hard and fast. 'cause people, in my opinion, by and large, do want to do the right thing, and they want to be sensible and they want to be safe, but they drift into bad habits.

And I think the role of enforcement is to remind people to gently tap them on the shoulder initially and encourage them to do the right thing rather than hard and fast. Anybody who breaks this rule must immediately be punished. And we, we see the fallout of that, uh, politically at the moment with the, uh, the alleged war on the motorist.

So there's a, there's a fine balance around how to do this, but my view is that the key thing is to identify those behaviors which have the greatest impact on both safety and flow, and flow and safety are actually very tightly intertwined. If you improve safety, you tend to improve flow. If you improve flow, you tend to improve safety.

So, um, environmentally as well. There, there's a link to that too. Mm. But at the moment there are some new ideas, concepts, and, and technologies that, um, are being used. And in particular, I'm, I'm very enthusiastic about the distracted driving technologies, mobile phone technologies, because it's been a growing problem on our network.

And I think most people would agree that, um, you often see people's heads bobbing up and down as they look in their lap. And are tapping on their phone. And we've not been able to do anything about it until recently, but we are, we are trialing ideas now for how this can work. And, um, we've been doing some work with National Highways on, on this area and it's something I think we are gonna see more of.

But that's just one example. There are, there are other things and if we can identify those. Dangerous, risky behaviors and we can appropriately deal with them, preferably in an educational way rather than a stick, using a stick to hit someone with it. I think that's where there's some great games for the safer road users to be used.

Vivi uh, building on what Jeff said, we've now seen also new technology in cars, particularly around connected and autonomous vehicles. How's that changing kinds of safety debate and, and the role for National Highways? This is, uh, an, an interesting topic, Max. This, this is still evolving. I think it's fair to say.

So we've, we've moved as an organization from being a builder, probably a few decades back into an operator, and now we're becoming a service provider. So our focus is mainly around the customer and the service we've provide to them. And of course the, the operators in our control rooms. So, . Definitely our role is changing in terms of what we can provide to either new technology providers or the customers.

This is something we're still exploring. So one of of the things we do, for example now, is building those platforms so we can share the data with the vehicles and the customers directly, so they don't necessarily have to rely on our roadside infrastructure. We're conscious this only exists on a relatively

Limited part of the network, but we do cover a roads, we do cover roads that don't have roadside technology. So it's quite crucial for us to be able to get that information, crucial, safety related information to the customer directly without having to rely on adding more infrastructure at the roadside.

So this is our main focus at the moment. And of course on the automated vehicle side, again, we're working a lot with, uh, the vehicle manufacturers to understand what we need to provide, how we can support them to also develop their safe . Systems, but we're very much in the space of we need to be working altogether.

So it's not just the road, it's not just the vehicle, just the, the people in the vehicle. It's all of us together creating that, that safe system. One of the things I want to focus on a little bit is now is, is is shifted kind of the data that are, our road network is producing both kind of the vehicles and also from roadside equipment.

Uh, in some ways we have . More data and more information about the road network in than ever before. But in some cases, we're not using it as effectively as we should, uh, in terms of using it to, to come up with information that could improve safety and, and plan, uh, for, for better roads. Uh, Rodney, if I can come back to you on this, you know, what can we be doing?

How can we better make better use of this data and, and particularly organizations, local authorities that's sitting on data, how do we get it to open up and, and to use it for ? To improve safety? No, I think it's a very valid point. As more information becomes available, uh, there is a very real risk of becoming blinded by the data because there's simply too much, there is a need to stream, to analyze and make sure that we're drawing the, the priority information out.

There's a need to ensure that that information's freely available. So there's the, the influence from the, the National Highway Network, but there's also the impact that that has on the local authority network has perhaps incidents on the network resulting . Traffic taking detours and I was trying to share that information in a publicly available way.

There's work to do on that front. There's work to ensure that that is all tied together in a much more coherent way. But I, I think at the moment there, there is that very real risk that we can't get blinded by simply so much information there. I know there's a lot of work going on to try and control that and start to analyze that in a much more real time.

Fashion so that we are using that to inform decision making in real time rather than using that to learn after an event has happened. And I think that's a key factor for us. Geoff, do you feel we'll be using data properly to do particularly on the predictive side? Well, it's an interesting question, particularly relating to road safety.

'cause as everybody probably knows, the, the actual metric for road safety is based on the stats 19 data, which is many months outta date. So that is very much a lagging indicator. Things were bad a year ago. What can we do about it? And, and of course, in that time people have moved on. So you are now dealing with different people to those who've, uh, published the, the original stats.

19. Absolutely. So you have data, and the data is valid, and so we can look at trends long term, but what it doesn't give you is that granularity that allows you to make rapid decisions. And I, I think . The current data capture and new ways to capture data could actually be far more effective because you'll have leading indicators showing that a dangerous scenario is, is coming towards us rather than went past us many months ago.

So I, I think there are some, there are some real opportunities with big data, new ways to capture data and analyzing it so we can actually understand exactly what's going on in our roads right now. And yeah, I think this is a really valid point and if I can add to the, to the research that we do, it is about understanding what data and information, mainly because it is about the information at the end of the day, customer's needs at any point in time so we don't overflow and overflow the, the information provided, especially when, when someone is

Concentrated on driving, for example. They need to be getting just information they need at the right time. So I think that's the biggest challenge for us. How we, we understand what that need is. I think at a, at a very basic level, you just look at the simple speed reaction sign where you know somebody's approaching a 30 mile an hour zone or whatever.

There's a sign that tells 'em they're going too fast. Generally they slow down. because they've got that positive influence, they've got that bit of information and that reduces that speed. And I think it's a very simplistic example of how we can use that, that slight advanced piece of information to influence behavior and the tie in with that overall system that, you know, it's not just about the road, it's not just about the technology, but it's about the personal behavior and it's providing that influence, that information to influence that personal behavior.

Um, or to avoid perhaps what would be just another statistic. That's been really fascinating. Uh, of course, however you design the, the, the road system or whatever, um, technology you put in, ultimately people using the, the network and people will, in some cases not follow the rules and will act in an unsafe way.

How do we get the message out there on, on mass to to ? The, the general public about, uh, the need to have, the importance of road safety and the importance of following the rules and, and acting in the right way. How, how do we engage with them and, and encourage the right behaviors? Geoff, if I can come to you first, it, that is an excellent question and there is no simple answer to it because.

We all are individuals. I'm not, and we all have different motivators that, um, drive us, and you can't have any one message that you will push out that will have an impact on everybody. So it has to be a broad spectrum approach with a mixture of individual experience, direct experience, and educated experience.

Then . Societal awareness as well so that people within their peer groups share views, thoughts, understanding, and then just across the whole of every single driver they need, they need to share an understanding and a view and . It is complicated. I don't have all of the answers, but people need to understand it.

That's why they shouldn't just think they're being occasionally monitored and they need to be aware when they're being monitored. There should be a greater acceptance and understanding of their role in the greater say system as well. So knowing that they are a part of a much bigger machine and the responsibility is with the the road user and the road user.

A lot of people will think that's just a driver, but it's not . Just a driver. It's somebody that could be on an e scooter or they could be on a horse, or they could be on a pedal cycle or a motorbike. They all have responsibility along with all of the other people around them on the network at the same time.

Vivi, National Highways, you've got a huge amount, number of people using the network. What do you see as your, your role in terms of nudging the right behaviors for those people and, and trying to communicate with them about the importance of road safety? Very inter interesting question. Max. National Highways, as, as an organization, we've done, um, lots of work in terms of education, um, and campaigns for, for the, the broad users.

But I don't think it's something we can do on our own. Uh, because it's, it's not just about people understanding how to use the strategic road network. It is about understanding how you interact with other users to, to your point, Jeff, about horse riders, for example. So it is about understanding all the, all those different interactions as well, and mainly understanding the risks that, uh, such a network carries naturally and being able to respond to, to those risks, um, appropriately and mainly

Uh, from our perspective, the ideal scenario I would say would be not to have to react to any events that happen. So if we can get to this point that breakdowns, for example, uh, I mentioned earlier, do not occur, or we minimize those occurrences, that that would be the ideal. So we don't have to then take action to detect warning and all the other things we have to do.

But yeah, lot, lots of work to be done. But again, not, not on our own, definitely not. And Rodney, if I can finish on you, what, what's your views on this topic of how we nudge the right behaviors and encourage people to, to act responsibly? So, I, I think from, from our perspective, it's twofold. It's around that with standardization of approach to design so that users, road users, be they in car or be they in, you know, non-motorized, recognize the provision they serve for them.

Recognize that there are actions that they should take and the provision that's provided and . We try and minimize surprises and equally when, when our colleagues are operating and maintaining the network, again, that approach to traffic management is uniform and it's trying to minimize surprises because you know, that I feel is us contributing to the safe system.

It's providing that clear process for people to follow. And then there's obviously, the other part of the deal is that people follow it when speed limits are advised they are adhered to. When layouts are banded, people are following that and it's just trying to really encourage that. And ultimately it's working across the the industry to really try and drive that behavior.

Because I don't think any of us can achieve this on our own. And I think that's a fantastic note to finish on. 'cause ultimately it will require, as you say, the whole industry, all of us working together. I, I think that's been a really fascinating discussion that's covered a huge amount of ground. And so a big thank you to our three speakers, Rodney Moffat from Amey, Geoff Collins from Acusensus, and Vivi Michalaki from National Highways.

And thank you as well to Project Edward for working with us, ITS UK. And as you say, we need to work together more to, to work out how we can best improve road safety and, and work with the transport technology community. Thank you very much.