Funding awarded for new ‘stranded vehicle’ technology

One of the major problems with ‘smart’ motorways has been the reliability of present technology to spot broken down vehicles on the roads. Now funding has been awarded to six trials of road safety technology by National Highways, including a project to identify when vehicles stop on the strategic road network (SRN).

The stopped vehicle detection verification system, developed by CrossTech, builds on the successful automated computer vision inspection platform from the rail industry, called Hubble. The trial will test the performance of this system by applying its computer vision analysis to over 100 hours of CCTV footage and comparing the outputs with event data from National Highway’s own systems.

Earlier this year, concerns were raised about whether radar technology to detect stranded vehicles used by National Highways was reliable. Figures obtained by TV’s Panorama programme revealed hundreds of incidents when crucial safety equipment was out of action, leaving vehicles stranded in fast-flowing traffic. Furthermore, problems with the technology used on smart motorways to identify stopped vehicles in live lanes were flagged by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) in a safety report published in December 2022.

National Highways launched a competition to find new ways to manage hazards on the SRN, with six winning ideas to be trialled.

National Highways’ technology programme portfolio manager, James Gibson, said:

We are delighted with the innovative ideas that we have discovered and excited about how well they are developing. It was so difficult trying to choose the final products to take forward that ultimately, we decided to add one more to the list.

Safety is our priority and we are always looking for new and innovative ways to help better protect people who use or work on our roads. We are confident that through these trials we can find better ways of identifying, analysing and responding to hazards, that could ultimately help to prevent road accidents and people coming to harm on our roads.

Advertisement