Sky High Technology used their Footprint Analytics live traffic monitoring system using Bluetooth scanners to help manage traffic flow during a 10-month bridge maintenance project in Scotland. Small Bluetooth scanners recorded vehicle MAC addresses and provided live journey time data to traffic controllers via a web dashboard. This helped reduce vehicle queues during the single-lane work. Over the 7-month project, the system collected data from over 521,000 devices and helped various authorities inform the public about potential delays. Based on the success, Sky High Technology is working with other transport authorities on similar major road projects.

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FootprintAnalyticslivejourneytimemonitoringCaseStudy
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Case Study: Live traffic monitoring
Country: UK
Date: September 2013 - May 2014
Service: Footprint Analytics live journey time traffic monitoring
Scale: 7 month live survey with 521,000 distinct bluetooth devices
Project Location: Erskine Bridge, Scotland
Overview:
Opened in 1971 the Erskine Bridge spans the River Clyde and is maintained by Transport Scotland. The bridge
carries approximately 40,000 vehicles per day but also has pedestrian walkways and cycle paths. As well as
routine preventative maintenance that is carried out on the bridge, a major project for essential barrier replacement
was started in June 2013.
Challenge:
The barrier replacement work necessitated reducing the traffic carriageway to one lane, with traffic signals at the
north side of the bridge for a period of 10 months. Controlling and reducing vehicle queues during the works was a
key challenge and could only be achieved if the control room for the bridge had live traffic flow information. The first
few days of the works involved surveyors who manually observed the traffic queue length and reported via mobile
phone. This was only partially effective and would have also been a costly long term solution. Automation of the
monitoring and accurate, live reporting was needed over the longer term.
Solution:
Sky High Technology were commissioned to use our
Footprint Analytics services for live traffic monitoring
using bluetooth scanners and reporting via a web based
dashboard. This technology had been proven to be very
effective in previous projects including the London 2012
Olympics and Paralympics in London.
A network of 7 small bluetooth scanners mounted on
roadside furniture recorded the MAC codes (a unique
number that identifies a mobile device on the network) as
they travelled through the road system. From this data
we were able to provide live journey times of vehicles to
the control room via a web based dashboard. Delays to
drivers were visible to controllers of the traffic signals at
all times and queue prevention could be implemented.

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Results:
The various authorities and contractors who were responsible for the barrier replacement scheme were fully
informed throughout the project. Traffic Scotland used web sites, text message services and their social media to
update the public about possible delays on the approaches to the Erskine Bridge.
What next:
Having proved the effectiveness and efficiency of Footprint Analytics we are working with transport authorities and
engineering companies all over the UK to use the system on other major road projects. The bluetooth units are
reliable, portable, quick to deploy and have self contained power.
Working effectively with multiple stake holders on large scale projects is key to our success, as well as the health
and safety of all parties. Our experienced Technicians coupled with our Project Managers played a major part in
the successful delivery of traffic survey data collection in such a challenging area.
FootprintAnalyticslivejourneytimemonitoringCaseStudy
About Bluetooth scanners
Our scanners operate on batteries which
are changed once a week.
They provide non intrusive data collection
and can cover multiple lanes of traffic at
speeds up to 110mph.
They do not require line of site and can
operate in any weather conditions.
The data they collect is anonymous,
factual and does not distract drivers, so is
above all, safe.
As well as the live data Footprint Analytics produced, Sky High Technology generated historical reporting that
allowed forecasting to take place based on traffic volumes, average journey times and delays at different times of
the day. During the 7 months over 50 million recordings were made of bluetooth devices. Our data algorithms were
used to negate the effect of double counting caused by multiple devices in a vehicle. This was only possible
because of the Sky High Technology experience in this specialist field of transport data collection.