Video Analytics Service Platform

This project aligns with Theme 5 - 'Operations', with a particular focus on Traffic Management. Its purpose is to provide Highways England’s operators with a virtual advisory assistant, identifying issues across the Strategic Road Network in real-time and flagging them for further analysis by Regional Control Centre Operators. This will help to alleviate congestion before it spreads; alert unsafe scenarios such as pedestrians on the highways; and support collection of new datasets to improve future planning. Underpinning this will be a scalable, deployable service platform to demonstrate the use of state-of-the-art video analytics on the existing CCTV estate of the English strategic road network (SRN). By providing software tools to Highways England (HE) Regional Control Centres (RCCs), we will improve both the real-time situational awareness of operators of traffic incidents and conditions, and enable new reporting tools to improve the understanding of traffic flows on the SRN. Costain and Vivacity Labs will collaborate on this project, combining Vivacity's cutting edge Artificial Intelligence video analytics (VA) technologies with Costain's expertise on engineering technology solutions suitable for the demanding nature of the Strategic Road Network. The project will create an advisory software system to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the existing RCC people and processes, focusing on HE Operations Centres and staff as the key users of the insight provided by video analytics.