Minnesota-based Image Sensing Systems (ISS) has announced that its UK partner, Techmiracle Technologies, has deployed its radar-based equipment to provide incident detection and data collection for the Mersey Gateway project.
The Mersey Gateway is a major civil engineering project to build a new six-lane cable toll bridge over the River Mersey near Liverpool, and a 5.7 mile-long (9.2 km) road network connecting the new bridge to the M56 motorway and the main highway network in the north of England.
The project will provide a much-needed new link between the towns of Runcorn and Widnes and will relieve the congested and aging Silver Jubilee Bridge. The Mersey Gateway bridge opened to free-flow tolling in mid-October and uses both RFID (radio frequency identification) transponders and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras for revenue collection.
The system that Techmiracle Technologies (TT) has deployed for the Mersey project includes 55 of ISS’s remote traffic microwave sensor (RTMS) Sx-300 radar units, TT’s RIUD (Radar Interface Unit) and E, data collectors, and a purpose designed Instation that was developed with a partner specifically for the project to provide a complete roadside end-to-end solution.
The all-weather ISS Sx-300 radar units are capable of monitoring up to 12 lanes and provide the gateway’s traffic data, including vehicle flow, speed, occupancy, headway and classification.
That data is sent via TT’s RIUE and data collector units to detect incidents in real time. The goal of the system is to provide advance warning to motorists that there is an incident ahead, help smooth traffic flow and prevent further incidents.
Techmiracle is working through the Mersey Gateway Consortium and is integrating the incident detection system into the Dynniq Imcity Master Control System that operates all the Gateway’s sub-systems. TT has field-proven hardware and software that works within a larger traffic management system and has received MCH 1529 type approval from Highways England for its products, including the ISS RTMS radar, and services, allowing the company to easily bid and deploy systems throughout the UK.
Gareth Heywood, managing director of Techmiracle, said, “This has truly been a collaborative development between ourselves, blue chip partner TNS, and deploying the world-leading RTMS Sx-300 technology to provide full incident detection utilizing the Image Sensing Systems’ Sx-300 radar units coupled with our own Interface and back office software/hardware systems to provide a complete turnkey solution.”
