Monday, 16th March 2009 - 10:45
ITS United Kingdom makes 2009 Awards for Excellence
The Hills Rees annual award for personal contribution has been given to Professor Mike McDonald of the University of Southampton.
The young ITS professional of the year award was made to Jo Scott of Atkins.
The Scheme of the year award went to Transport for London for the UTC and SCOOT to VISSIM interface.
The Forward Thinking award for innovation went to TRL for the TRANSYT to VISSIM interface.
The awards are open to any organisation or individual with a UK business office and that has a significant UK telematics or other ITS content.
The nominations were judged by an eminent panel of ITS professionals chaired by ITS (UK) President and former Transport Minister, Steven Norris. The Panel Members were:-
Russell Whale, FaberMaunsell
Kevin Borras, h3b media
Jill Adam, Department for Transport
Anil Namdeo, University of Newcastle
Janet Cooke, London TravelWatch
George Gillespie, Glasgow City Council
Neal Skelton, ITS United Kingdom
The awards were presented by Steven Norris at the ITS United Kingdom President’s Dinner at Watermen’s Hall in the City of London on 10 March 2009 in London.
More details about the Award winners:-
Scheme of the year award: Transport for London for the UTC and SCOOT to VISSIM interface
The Award was collected by Alan Bristow, Director of Traffic Operations, TfL
This software interface brings together data, products and techniques into a single elegant solution by allowing London’s Urban Traffic Control (UTC) system to be linked with the VISSIM traffic micro-simulator. The benefits of combining VISSIM and UTC far outweigh the individual benefits of both systems.
Benefits delivered by TfL’s Traffic Operations team (the primary operators of the solution) include enabling improvements on-street that help travellers on London’s roads and to an extent all parties that use London’s transport infrastructure.
The interface enables the VISSIM model to feed an offline UTC system with flow data. The UTC system then optimises in the normal manner (e.g. SCOOT) and sends control data back to the VISSIM model every second. This transfer of data via the link allows traffic engineers to predict the outcome of planned scenarios in an offline, controlled environment. This allows an exploration of the variety of complex and dynamic features in the UTC system, such as SCOOT, bus priority and event / incident response systems. In addition the interface can be used to train other engineers in the subtleties of UTC control.
Forward Thinking award for innovation: TRL for the TRANSYT to VISSIM interface
The Award was collected by Adam Giszczak of TRL
Both TRANSYT and VISSIM are used intensively by TfL Traffic Engineers and by consultants throughout the UK, and the world. Both packages are critical to the successful design and implementation of signal schemes, especially where the road network is close to capacity. Through a partnership of skills, knowledge and experience TRL and TfL have developed the TRANSYT to VISSIM interface. This groundbreaking software interface automates a process that previously took several hours to conduct manually. It also reduces the chance of data-transfer errors.
For many years VISSIM and TRANSYT have been used in combination to complement their individual strengths. TRANSYT’s strengths lie in its signal timing optimisation approach, which is very similar to SCOOT optimisation used at many of London’s signalised junctions. VISSIM’s strength on the other hand is in modelling detailed driver behaviour in over saturated networks, and producing high quality visual demonstrations of modelled outputs. Typically an Engineer must iterate between the two models in order to achieve a robust prediction of network behaviour. This iterative process may need to occur multiple times in order to achieve the optimum set of signal timings.
In the past this process has taken many hours of manual work for an Engineer, transferring data between the two modelling packages. In addition it has been necessary for each Engineer to be proficient in the use of both modelling packages, or for more than one Engineer to be involved in the process.
Young ITS professional of the year award: Jo Scott of Atkins (Traffic-Wales)
Jo was nominated for her work on the Migration to ITSO Compliant Smartcards and Systems in Wales for the Welsh Assembly Government.
As well as her strong competency in project management, Jo has consistently shown her ability to deliver this challenging project across a wide range of stakeholders using a combination of broad technical, influencing and leadership skills. This has included the delivery of over 500,000 smartcards, the ongoing rollout of 2,500 ticket machines and associated systems to all 22 Welsh Local Authorities with the costs of the project significantly lower than seen in other schemes.
Jo also provides influence at a strategic level within the UK Smartcard sector through representing the Welsh Assembly Government on the ITSO Board and as chair of the ITSO Licensed Operators Group.
She has also built a strong and trusted relationship with the Welsh Assembly Government client - Vivien Collins - and frequently represents the Assembly at conferences and ITS working groups. Her expertise has been shared through the publication and presentation of technical papers at both ITS Europe and World Congresses.
The Hills Rees annual award for personal contribution: Professor Mike McDonald of the University of Southampton
For the last two ITS (UK) has had as its senior award the recognition of outstanding personal achievement. Last year the ITS (UK) Council decided that this award should itself reflect just that — the outstanding personal achievement of the late Peter Hills and the late Neville Rees. Peter was an outstanding transport academic at Newcastle University who pioneered thinking on demand management, the application of economic theory to transport, road user charging and many other aspects of intelligent transport. Neville Rees was also a mould-breaker; in his case changing the way in which Government analysed and then addressed problems of traffic management, traveller information, dynamic navigation and the links between traffic and spatial planning.
Council has decided that the award for outstanding personal contribution shall now be known as the Hills-Rees Award.
The first recipient, Professor MacDonald, could have been nominated against any one of four different categories of achievement: as an academic researcher; as a teacher; as a practical engineer; and as a strategist / adviser. There are not many people that match that description.
Mike has just tried to retire after 25 years as been Director of the Southampton Transportation Research Group where his research interests have covered transport planning, traffic engineering and control, application of new technology, safety, highway design, economic appraisal and evaluation. He has over 100 publications in these areas.
As a teacher the evidence is widespread – his ex-students are to be found in central and local Government both here and in numerous overseas locations; in consultancies; in Universities; in schools. Mike is a captivating and inspiring teacher whose wisdom is matched by a dry humour.
As a practical engineer his work on flows at traffic signals is used everyday by transport practitioners; without his theory and careful measurements the UK’s lead in traffic management would not exist.
As an adviser Mike has served with distinction on numerous committees and advisory bodies. He is valued internationally as a leading visionary, one who has the ear of industry, government and his peers equally. He was almost certainly the first European to argue for changing the emphasis in transport from infrastructure to intelligent vehicles and drivers.
Mike has also helped the development of ITS (UK), not least by serving as the Council Chairman. Mike has always committed time and energy to promote ITS in the UK, but he has always had even more time to help others support new ideas and respond to cries for assistance.
Mike's contributions have probably saved the UK millions of gallons of fuel and hours otherwise wasted at traffic signals. He has helped put the Intelligence into ITS and has helped to put the UK right at the top of ITS, not just in research but in delivery too.
Photos of the Award winners are available from ITS (UK) – please email mailbox@its-uk.org.uk
ENQUIRIES:
For further information, please contact:
Jennie Martin
ITS (UK) Tel:
+44(0)20 7709 3003
Email:
mailbox@its-uk.org.uk
Notes to editors:
ITS UNITED KINGDOM, the UK association for the promotion of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), is a not-for-profit public/private sector association financed by members' subscriptions, and provides a forum for all organisations concerned with ITS. We work to bring the benefits that ITS can offer in terms of economic efficiency, transport safety, and environmental benefits to the United Kingdom - and at the same time expand the ITS market.
The membership, over 160 UK organisations, comprises Government Departments, Local Authorities, Police Forces, consultants, manufacturing and service companies, and academic and research institutions.
Members benefit from ITS United Kingdom activities including seminars, workshops and regular news dissemination. ITS United Kingdom encourages discussion on issues such as public/private co-operation, standards, legislation, information provision and new technology.
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