Technology services company telent will maintain critical roadside technology on the strategic road network after winning three five-year contracts worth over £15 million with the Highways Agency.
The company will be responsible for technology across the east, south east and M25 regions’ motorways and trunk roads.
This is the first time a company has been awarded contracts for three regions at once – the most the Highways Agency is able to grant to any one company at a time. The firm completed rapid and successful mobilisation of the project within nine weeks and now manages all routine and reactive maintenance for over 12,000 technology assets, such as emergency roadside telephones, message signs, traffic signal sites, the Highways Agency weather stations, CCTV cameras, tunnels and many more.
Phil Hardy-Bishop, M25 Highways Agency mobilisation manager, said:
“The Highways Agency is committed to providing safe and reliable journeys for the millions of vehicles that use our roads each day. Across the three regions there is a vast amount of technology that contribute to this and telent handled the pressures of mobilising the three contracts very well and ensured a smooth transition to the new contract. The work undertaken during the final days in co-ordinating all the resources, vehicles and stocks was efficiently handled.”
telent’s scope includes developing new ways of working to maintain the technology such as infrared CCTV, implemented as part of the new generation of smart motorways now open on the M25. This, combined with the use of the hard shoulder as a permanent running lane, reduces congestion, eases traffic flow and improves the reliability of journeys.
Chris Metcalfe, managing director technology solutions at telent, added: “Every piece of technology or means of communication on the motorway goes toward the smooth running of Britain’s roads – in this case some of its busiest roads – and they require constant monitoring and maintenance to ensure they operate efficiently and safely.
“The M25 alone is 117 miles long and is the second longest city bypass in Europe, with the busiest section already carrying 200,000 vehicles a day. Therefore, it’s crucial that a targeted, analytical and cost-effective service is delivered in order to manage a project of this magnitude, and we’re proud that we’ve been able to start this so successfully.”
