Many people will be familiar with our work delivering the Transport Technology Forum (TTF) for DfT and Innovate UK. If you are not aware of this work, please look at the TTF website and how the work of the TTF connects Government, Councils and suppliers through working groups, events, guidance and much more.
Last October Mark Harper MP, Secretary of State for Transport announced as part of the Government’s Plan for Drivers the intention to provide three targeted grants to local authorities for traffic signal maintenance and upgrading, and for innovative traffic management solutions.
Two of the three targeted grants were TSOG (Traffic Signals Obsolescence Grant), a £30 million fund to upgrade obsolete traffic signal systems and improve reliability, primarily at sites using halogen lamps and legacy 2g/3g communications but was also aimed at unreliable and obsolete equipment more generally. This grant also had a £10m automatic element paid to all eligible authorities which for me was an important element. Then there was the GLF (Green Light Fund), a £20 million challenge fund to tune up traffic signals to better reflect actual traffic conditions and get traffic flowing. Both of these grants have recently been awarded and you can find the awards to successful councils listed here.
The final grant is the ITMF (Intelligent Traffic Management Fund), a £20 million challenge fund to deploy advanced technology for traffic signals, making use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to optimise traffic flow and balance traffic across wider areas opened for submissions this week. The application guidance along with other Signals funding information can be found here.
The ITMF grant, is intended to support the introduction of next generation traffic management technologies for corridor and area-wide optimisation to a small number of English authorities. Although the final released grant to a smaller number of councils is smaller, and awards will be in the region of £500,000 and £2m a key part of the award will be to encourage the showcasing of new and emerging solutions to area-wide traffic management. This grant is particularly important as it’s an opportunity for different technologies to be used, it will also give an opportunity to capture results from different technologies to provide evidence for future investment by Government. This latter point being particularly important. It was clear that evidence of traffic improvements because of the £15m awarded to councils in 2021 played a significant role in encouraging Ministers to award the three grants listed above.
As with all grants including other sector programmes such as Live Labs2, for example, that showing learning and replicability principles are key. With ITMF if the award to a smaller number of councils shows that there is demonstrable efficiency on our roads, then I am hopeful this will add to the evidence to fund further projects in more councils in the future. As we know our networks are constrained, and any efficiency on those betworks has benefits beyond not just drivers but in other areas such air quality in towns and cities, intelligent traffic management for active travel modes and so much more.
Therefore, ITMF is a great opportunity for councils, suppliers and innovative SMES to deploy, and trial emerging but stable technologies. The closing date for the ITMF is 5pm on the 31st July and applications can now be submitted through the Signals Funding page on the TTF website. I would urge Councils and suppliers to take advantage of this opportunity.
Paula Claytonsmith, Chief Executive