COSTAIN AWARDED CONNECTED VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY CONTRACT

Costain, the smart infrastructure solutions company, has been awarded a technology contract by Highways England, to work in collaboration with them, the Department for Transport, Transport for London (TfL) and Kent County Council to design, install and implement one of the UK’s first pilot connected vehicle corridors on a live road.

Under the contract, known as the A2M2 connected corridor, Costain will deliver roadside technology using data supplied by TfL, Highways England and Kent County Council and a technology testbed for Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS).  This flagship contract will help to promote the UK as market leader in Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) and C-ITS technology.

Andrew Wyllie CBE, chief executive said, “This is an important step in making our roads safer and improving journey time reliability by embracing cutting edge technology.  It is a further demonstration of Costain’s capability and we look forward to leading the way with the deployment and testing of this exciting technology”.

Mike Wilson, safety, engineering and standards executive director, Highways England, said, “Having the technology in place to allow vehicles to connect to each other and the road around them has the potential to improve journeys, making them safer and more reliable by providing real-time, personalised information directly to the driver. It could also help us manage traffic and respond to incidents.

“The A2/M2 trial will test and demonstrate how this may work in the real world. We are delighted to be jointly funding and part of this international project.”

Within the A2M2 connected corridor contract, Costain will be testing the wireless transmission of data to and from travelling vehicles.  Trial vehicles will be fitted with onboard technology that will communicate with roadside units via ITS G5 wireless communication and with the service provider via cellular communication.  This will convey information to the vehicle relating to road works, road conditions, temporary speed limits and the time remaining before a traffic light turns to green.  This information could then be used by the vehicle to vary speed, for example.  Information from the contract will be used to develop connected vehicle standards and facilitate a widescale deployment of connected vehicle technology.

Costain will deliver this contract with core partners, Mott MacDonald, 4way Consulting, TRL, Kapsch TrafficCom AG, Altran, Cohda Wireless, Telent Technology Services Ltd and Telefonica.

This contract win follows the announcement of the Group’s contract with Highways England to supply Motorway Incident Detection and Automated Signalling (MIDAS) technology systems to help improve road user safety and builds on the recent announcement of Costain’s key role supplying smart autonomous vehicle monitoring technology for the Midlands Future Mobility testbed.