Now in its 28th year, Europe’s largest dedicated road, traffic, and transport exhibition, Traffex, will debut several new innovations at this year’s event, including an ‘Innovation Trail’ and the first fully working indoor ‘Smart Motorway’.
Traffex 2017 will bring together local authorities, regional governments, and all organizations looking to deliver continuous, cost effective and efficient improvements to their roads and highways, with over 350 exhibitors including those representing traffic management, road safety, intelligent transport systems (ITS) and automated license plate recognition (ALPR) industries.
The show will provide visitors with the chance to speak with the exhibitors, listen to informative keynote speakers and special guests, and attend a range of forward-thinking presentations at both the Traffex Theatre and Highways and Transport Theatre. The event takes place at the NEC, Birmingham, UK, on April 4-6.
Potential highlights from this year’s event will include:
Highways England (HE) will be demonstrating a live and fully-working Smart Motorway lighting and signage gantry, which will allow visitors to see how the agency’s active traffic management (ATM) techniques are used to increase motorway capacity across the country’s road network;
The ‘Smart & Safe’ feature will be back, enabling visitors to see products at close hand, including the life-saving products employed by the emergency services to deal quickly and safely with incidents on the road network. Given the recent terrorist attack in London, the importance of transport safety measurements has never been more vital to the benefit and welfare of the UK public;
The Innovation Trail will showcase forward-thinking technologies and offer visitors the opportunity to interact with products and services at the forefront of the evolution of the UK’s roads. The trail aims to create a realistic environment representing the future of the highways industry and will include: Mallatite’s TransCalm (above and below), which is an intelligent speed-responsive road bump that alters its firmness according to the velocity of individual passing vehicles; and FLIR Intelligent Transportation Systems’s TrafiOne (second from top), an all-round detection sensor for traffic monitoring and dynamic traffic signal control.
One of the leading suppliers of equipment to the UK’s traffic management agencies, Siemens ITS, will demonstrate the benefits of ‘connected thinking’, by showcasing integrated systems for sustainable, safe, clean, connected, and efficient transport networks.
Siemens sales and marketing director Matthew Vincent explained the philosophy: “In an increasingly data driven and digitized world, our expertise in design, manufacture, installation, maintenance and operations gives a unique perspective on ‘joined-up’ thinking.
“We can help define and deliver the most appropriate solutions to our customers’ challenges, today, tomorrow and beyond, and provide real benefits to them, the travelling public, and UK society.”
Adrian Tatum, Traffex conference director, commented, “As the UK transport network continues to grow, we face inevitable challenges and a responsibility to innovate and adapt to meet demand.
“What Traffex aims to do is provide a creative platform for these ideas and by both working with, and learning from, each other, the industry can address and hopefully tackle the challenges we face across the road, traffic and transport sectors.”
