BCP Smart Place use case: Highways Management - YouTube

Use case overview

The purpose of this project is to seek to test technology that could in the future be used to incentivise greater car sharing. Typically, using technology to identify car occupancy, could enable priority to be given to multiple-occupancy vehicles, typically at traffic signal junctions.

The challenge

Traffic congestion is a significant issue locally, with the BCP conurbation being within the ten most congested city regions nationally. This has a significant impact upon the local economy, in terms of lost productive time as well as impacting upon air quality and pollution, with knock-on impacts upon health. Single occupancy car use is currently a particular issue.

In this use case, a vehicle is connected to BCP's private 5G network. Nextium have developed an application that utilises a scanning device in the driver’s car. This reports the total number of people in the car back through to the backend system via the mobile router.

By interacting in real time with cars and drivers this technology opens up the possibility of providing dedicated lanes and traffic signal priority for high occupancy vehicles, as well as avoiding minimising the need for enforcement resources.

How will this help?

The purpose of this project is to develop technology to identify car occupancy. We can give priority to multiple-occupancy vehicles at traffic signals, to incentivise car sharing and lead to fewer trips on our local roads.

Who did we work with?

Nextium and Government of Catalonia