One of the UK’s leading developers of radar-based solutions for the transportation industry, Navtech Radar, has launched a new trailer-mounted system to ensure highway workzone safety and security.
Launching its new system, the company notes that being a road worker is the 16th most dangerous occupation in the UK. Between 2007 and 2016 there were 15 recorded road worker fatalities and 210 serious injuries across the country, with the majority of serious injuries and deaths due to road workers being struck by oncoming vehicles. Over the last 10 years there have been over 18,000 reports of vehicle incursions into roadworks on Highways England’s Strategic Road Network (SRN).
Navtech Radar’s new ClearWay Roadwork Safety system detects vehicle incursions and activates audible and visual alarms, both from a central alarm post, and at the individual worker level through wearable devices. The system also offers further protection to workers by alerting both individuals and site managers, if personnel move outside designated work areas or enter live traffic zones. Unlike video based systems that are designed to detect and punish vehicle incursions, the new ClearWay Roadwork Safety solution is based on detection and warning, giving workers vital moments to get to safety in time critical situations.
Navtech also highlights the fact that theft of plant and other equipment from highway roadwork zones is a now major industry problem, creating not just a financial burden, but also unplanned delays to projects when vital equipment is suddenly and unexpectedly unavailable. It is estimated that the UK construction industry alone loses £800m (US$1.05bn) a year to theft.
Thieves have become increasingly sophisticated in the methods they employ, even posing as plant manufacturers or maintenance workers in order to remove vehicles from site. In addition to its road worker protection benefits, the ClearWay Roadwork Safety system also detects and alerts site managers and security personnel, when vehicles and people enter a secure road work zone, allowing instant ‘friend or foe’ determination.
Using similar technologies to the company’s ClearWay Automatic Incident Detection (AID) system, which is widely-used in tunnels and on the UK’s motorway network, the Roadwork Safety system has numerous features and benefits, including:
• Complete situational awareness;
• Advanced detection and warning;
• Operates in all weather and light conditions;
• Highest detail resolution even at large distances;
• Object tracking over vast distances;
• Fast and convenient installation;
• Permanent recording of the entire scene.
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The company’s 360° scanning radar unit is unaffected by external conditions such as heavy rainfall, fog, thick dust storms or complete absence of light, making it an ideal solution for harsh roadside environments where visibility is often compromised.
