Mouchel Parkman

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M42 active traffic management (ATM)

The challenge

ATM is a pro-active approach to the management of traffic and will allow the Highways Agency to better fulfil its role as Network Operator by:

• Providing targeted solutions to specific traffic problems
• Providing additional capacity, possibly reducing the need for road widening
• Combining a variety of tried and tested technology, infrastructure and procedures
• Piloting of new and innovative concepts
• Helping to alleviate congestion
• Improving the detection of and response to incidents
• Reducing delays and driver stress

The chosen location for this pilot project is the M42 between junctions 3A and 7; a 17km section which is used by more than 120,000 vehicles per day. It was chosen because of its strategic importance to the Midlands area in distributing local and national traffic and providing a link between the M40 and M6 motorways. The M42 also serves the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham International Airport, the business parks and the busy residential areas along this corridor.

The solution

The Highways Agency selected a consortium led by Mouchel Parkman to act as Managing Consultants for the ATM Pilot Project. IPL is a key member of the Managing Consultants team, responsible for the telematics stream. IPL's contributions to the project have included:

• Investigating the use of telematics systems specific to the safe use of the hard-shoulder as the fourth running lane;
• Investigating and specifying the control systems, including changes to NMCS2, MIDAS and providing support for phase 1 of ATM;
• Specifying the detailed system requirements for hard-shoulder running and the management of the necessary system upgrades
• Managing of the procurement of a semi-automatic control system for hard-shoulder running
• Development of the signs and signal setting rules together with the development of the HA rules test bed
• Technical advice on the hazard analysis of all motorway activities with respect to ATM.

The highlights

ATM will contribute towards tackling congestion, increased reliability of journey times, safer travel, improved information provided to drivers and smarter roads.

ATM will enable incidents to be detected faster due to comprehensive roadside detection technology, CCTV monitoring from a control room and the installation of full motorway lighting.

ATM will bring together a number of technologies to demonstrate how they can be used in parallel to maximise their benefits. Depending on the volume of traffic and the extent of any congestion, ATM's systems will calculate the optimum speed to maximize traffic flows. Automatic signaling will provide early warnings to road users, protecting those held in queuing traffic.