Hello! My name is John Paddington and James has kindly let me take over MMD for the day (James – No problem John. Fire away!).

If you have never met me before, let me introduce myself. I work in intelligent transport systems (ITS) – basically the techy end of transport, which is full of acronyms, like ITSO, CAV, 5G, V2X and MaaS. As much as I work with technology, I am more interested in how we use it to make transport better for people and improve walking, cycling and public transport. I work for ERTICO (www.ERTICO.com) a public-private partnership devoted to promoting the use of technology in transport.

I went to an event recently and thought there was some interesting things to share with a wider audience.

Thanks,

John

The TTF

Ok so now I have the introduction out the way. Let me set the scene. At the end of April, I went to the Transport Technology Forum (TTF) annual conference. If you’ve not heard of the TTF, it’s a Department for Transport initiative aiming to help local government understand the benefits of technology in transport. I’m not going to write in-depth about what they do – if you’re interested you can check out the TTF website. Instead, I want to cover some things I found interesting and relevant to the MMD audience.

Parking

Personally I find parking apps really convenient but I also know they cause problems, especially when you go somewhere new and you need to download yet another app. The National Parking Platform is looking to overcome this and connect councils, car parks and apps together. The aim is to be able to use one app wherever you go.

Continuing the subject of parking: Some people get 300 parking tickets a month!

Yes apparently so! But more seriously, these persistent offenders take up a lot of time and cost for Local Authorities issuing tickets, following up non-payment, etc. So, it was good to hear that the government is looking to do something with the National Persistent Evaders Database. This initiative will look at how local authorities can share to tackle these persistent offenders. Offenders will be prioritised based on the number of offences (Category A, B, C and D).

Technology for active travel

Seesense talked about their intelligent cycle lights, which allows data to be collected on route choice but also understand the condition of infrastructure from vibration.

Transport for Greater Manchester talked about how they using data from Strava to understand the routes pedestrians and cyclists take across Manchester. As Sam Li of TfGM said “every journey starts with a walk”.

Manual for Smart Streets

At the TTF, the Department for Transport and the Connected Places Catapult launched the Manual for Smart Streets. It is mainly aimed at traffic and highway managers and provides an overview of how technology can help. The guidance describes the technology, the benefits and the potential business case.

Conclusion

Often the world of transport technology seems quite futuristic , a long way off or impractical but I wanted to share these links about things that are happening today and that technology can benefit all users, not just drivers.