Designed to make it easier and more cost effective for Local Authorities to check that traffic signal junctions and pedestrian crossings are functioning correctly, RMS was first brought into use in West Sussex and Devon in 2013. Now there are eighteen local authorities running RMS and over 1,000 sites are connected to the system. RMS was designed and continues to be managed and hosted exclusively by Telent, removing the need for customers to invest in and maintain their own costly servers and hardware.
RMS enables traffic engineers to monitor the health and performance of a junction or crossing from anywhere with an internet connection, anytime, day or night. A member of the public’s report of “stuck lights” can be instantly checked by an engineer, saving time and money and supporting targets to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the need for unnecessary engineer visits.
RMS continues to evolve since its initial launch, and many important features have been added following collaborative development work with various customers. CCTV functionality was added in 2016; simple cameras are all that’s needed to enable traffic engineers to remotely view their assets and make assessments of potential problems. Remote monitoring means fewer miles for repair teams who can identify issues without having to make an initial visual assessment. This also ensures they can bring the right tools and replacement parts to affect an efficient repair in one visit.
Some Local Authorities have started to use Telent’s remote monitoring technology to monitor pollution levels at the roadside. By attaching air quality sensors or other environmental monitoring devices to RMS, councils can receive essential data about the times and locations where pollution is at its worst, enabling the deployment of solutions mitigate any particularly concerning spikes in the data.
In just seven years, the Telent Remote Monitoring System has evolved from a locally installed application to a widely supported web-based architecture which now offers a range of potential new uses for customers across the country. The next 1,000 installations might not be that far away.