Siemens Mobility awarded four year contract by DfI in Northern Ireland

Siemens Mobility awarded four year contract by DfI in Northern Ireland

Siemens Mobility has been awarded a new four-year contract by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) in Northern Ireland. The contract covers both the maintenance and development of the existing traffic management systems, which are largely located in Belfast, and replaces the previous contract which expired on 31 January 2019.

The scope of the new contract includes both the maintenance of the authority’s existing locally-deployed systems, and the ongoing delivery of a dedicated IP-communications network, which connects 328 urban traffic control (UTC) sites to the central Siemens Mobility UTC and SCOOT system. The new contract is expected to migrate the legacy systems to a cloud-hosted ‘Software as a Service’ solution over the next three years.

Commenting on the award, Wilke Reints, Managing Director of Siemens Mobility’s Intelligent Traffic Systems business in the UK, said: “Having worked closely with the DfI team for more than twenty five years, we are delighted to have been awarded this new contract to not only continue, but also build on our work together. We are pleased to be introducing our new UTC-UX system to Northern Ireland as part of the contract, which will provide an easy to use, intuitive and fully-hosted system for the traffic management team.”

Launched by Siemens Mobility at the end of 2018, the company’s new UTC-UX system operates directly from a web browser and brings a host of new intuitive features, including at-a-glance screens, junction status, a choice of maps, quick links and intuitive control features with context sensitive menus. The upgraded control system features modern mapping capabilities, new equipment overview screens, simple toggle on/off and context menu controls, all of which enables users to quickly and easily explore a controlled junction and its associated equipment.

As well as upgrades to the business-critical UTC system, this new contract will see the current Comet and RMS systems replaced with Stratos, the cloud-hosted highways management system from Siemens Mobility.

Reints continued: “With digitalisation, we are helping mobility operators worldwide to make their networks and infrastructure more intelligent and ultimately enhance their road-users’ experience. Moving to Stratos will help achieve this, providing the authority with a fully-managed software service and enabling it to meet the challenges of running Northern Ireland’s road network now and well into the future.”