Data and Innovation Project Manager, Stephen Sprott, and Traffic Engineering Officer, Brian Davidson, teamed up at TRANSPORT Smart Class, Scotland 2024 to deliver an inspirational keynote on behalf of Glasgow City Council. They explored the growing role of data insights and digital innovation to support decision making across the local road network, to assist with operational and management decisions about city traffic, and to enhance the experience of those using Glasgow’s roads.
Stephen outlined some of the ways the city is making best use of the data generated around Glasgow’s transport network, and Brian demonstrated some of the cutting-edge technologies being deployed to improve active travel opportunities, increase bus reliability, reduce congestion, improve journey times and provide rich data on vehicle pollution and pedestrian footfall.
GCC’s Deborah Paton (Head of Transport Planning & Delivery), Martin Heath (Director of Roads & Transportation), Gillian Dick (Spatial Planning Manager) and Mima Fair (Spatial Planning R&D Project Officer) were also in attendance to share their expert knowledge during the roundtables and networking sessions.
Summary of highlights from Brian and Stephen’s keynote:
- Traffcom – GCC’s Traffcom team operate and maintain almost 1,000 sets of traffic signals across Glasgow, and employ a mixture of technologies to optimise traffic and pedestrian flows; Traffcom Control Room also able to remotely adjust signal timings in real time to deal with incidents and events;
- Corporate Data Team – Promote open data; Use data analytics and technology to generate insights about Glasgow; Data integration and visualisations; Bespoke digital solutions;
- Shared Goal – “Supporting a fair and sustainable city where everyone gets to contribute and all can benefit from a flourishing Glasgow”;
- Recent Use Cases – Capturing live and historic traffic data for later re-use; Turning CCTV images into data insights using AI; Integrating layers of people movement data; LEZ monitoring;
- Live and Historic Traffic Data – GCC Traffic Management System map displays current traffic status compared to the last 8 week average for the same time period and graph shows hourly flow sum comparison; Historic comparisons compare traffic data at over 1,000 sites around the City between two dates; The sensors measure carriageway occupancy, hence a high figure in a given time period could indicate more vehicles using the route or more congestion on the route;
- CCTV Object Detection – Time series analysis visualises travel trends across 68 Glasgow locations; Object types include Cars, Vans, Buses, Lorries, Pedestrians, Motorcycles, Taxis and Cyclists; ‘Manage Segments’ to compare camera locations/object types;
- Integrating People Movement Data – People movements include Footfall, Subway Passengers, Bus Departures, Train Passengers, Station Footfall, Road Traffic; City Centre Performance Dashboard enables at a glance and deep dive insights from Tourism (e.g. international arrivals, domestic arrivals, hotel occupancy), Public Transport and other Themes e.g. Private Transport (Traffic, EV Network etc), Development (Office Vacancy Rate, Retail Vacancy Rate, Planning Applications), Spending & Employment (Retail Spend, Unemployment Rate, Benefit Claimants) etc;
- Rise of the Machines – Improving Travel Experiences Through Innovation…
- Shawlands Bike Bus;
- Embedded AI Buchanan Street;
- Embedded AI Clyde Arc;
- Project EVA;
- SCOOT Adaptive Control of Traffic Signals;
- Bus Priority and NOVUS;
- Bluetooth Journey Times;
- Fetched Tracks;
- Route Length Analysis;
- What’s Next?
- Use emerging technologies to improve traffic control and collect rich data on vehicle/active travel/pedestrian movements;
- A single platform to consume and visualise multiple data sources about vehicle and people movement in Glasgow;
- More use cases for AI capability;
- Sharing the data and insights with citizens and city partners
If you satisfy our regular delegate qualification criteria but were unable to join us in Glasgow on September 12th for the live in-person event at Citation, CLICK HERE and complete the short “Download form” (located at the bottom of the post) to receive a unique link enabling free access to the presentation video recordings and slides (including the film footage and slides from Brian and Stephen’s keynote).
Those qualifying to receive the rich presentation content from this event include commissioning, procurement, trialling, partnering and policy leads, senior influencers, strategic decision makers, programme managers and planners from local authorities (e.g. city, borough, metropolitan, district and county councils); public transport operators; regional transport partnerships, sub-regional transport bodies, combined authorities, integrated transport authorities and passenger transport executives; highways authorities and road operators; government and supporting national transport agencies; non-governmental organisations; fleet operators, parking operators, prime contractors etc.
