The status of all routes is then instantly broadcast via Voyager to the public, hauliers, bus operators, emergency services, radio stations, etc who can use the information to modify their operations. Features and benefits include:

• Pre-confgured routes (such as gritting routes) can be imported and set as passable, impassable or unknown collectively or individually.
• Different road types (such as A roads, B roads, minor roads, unnamed roads etc) can be set as passable, impassable or unknown collectively.
• Users can define their own route by drawing it on a map and naming it, then that can be set as passable, impassable or unknown.
• Any authorised user can set the route passability. These could be local authority users, district users, bus operators, etc.
• Whilst Argonaut users can view all road types, Voyager users can be denied access to say the status of minor roads.

"The development team are pleased to offer this simple but effective enhancement to the winter maintenance packages we have available. Information is key in most types of management scinaros, and the passable roads section of Argonaut fits the bill nicely." commented Adrian Goodwin, Cloud Amber's Project Manager.

Download the new feature's specification - PDF 3,340KB.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 66KB

• The public, hauliers, emergency services can see in real time those routes gritted in the last hour, 4 hours, 8 hours or any other time period in the Voyager travel portal.
• Authorities can see in real time the location of their gritters and their status, ignition on, ignition off, gritting, operator, vehicle VRN/reference, driver etc.
• Authorities can choose to view the routes gritted in the last minute, 22 minutes... or any other period of time they choose.
• Any gritter - or other vehicle - can be tracked using existing tracking equipment or Cloud Amber supplied tracking equipment.

"Fortunately, it is not too late to integrate this feature in to other systems" commented Mike Wells, Cloud Ambers Operations Director. Mike continued "using our rapid development techniques and simple deployment options, we are still able to take orders for the Winter Maintenance product. This even includes integrating with existing 3rd parties or supplying new tracking equipment."

Download the new feature's specification - PDF 1,770KB.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 66KB

Lee Williams, a Project Manager within Cloud Amber, went on to describe how one features which will help his customers: "Any data received from a third party system such as a counter that is sending clearly wrong data (such as a negative count or a count that exceeds some user defined value etc) is stored in the quarantine area where the user can either delete it or allow it to be added in to the common data base. This ensures that data in the database is not polluted by poor quality data."

Mike Wells, responsible for all operations chimed in and added; "Any data received from a third party system that the UTMC database does not recognise can also be quarantined. For example imagine that a new ANPR link has been installed; if that ANPR link has not been manually added to the common database then any data for that link will then enter the quarantine area. This lets the user know that he/she is receiving data for an object that has not yet been added to the Common Database. The user can then simply select that item and add it to the database, thereafter any such data will automatically pass in to the database."

Download the new feature's specification - PDF 1,239KB.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 73KB

Adrian Goodwin, who was responsible for the release, explained some of the new features; "This new version of Argonaut records all user actions, all automatic decisions within the Strategy Manager, communications with public facing outstation equipment. We are really excited about this implementation and have tried our best to make it easy to use with full drop down filters on users and objects as well as the logging which includes date, time, user, action and all associated data."

Richard Thurbin, Cloud Amber's technical guru went on to explain; "These new features enable authorities to carry out reconstructions and lessons learnt, allows future analysis and preventative measure. In addition savings can be made by reducing the time spent on freedom of information requests".

Download the feature's specification - PDF 1,289KB.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 72KB

A key advantage of Bluetooth detection over traditional ANPR is that Bluetooth detectors have an antenna whose beam can be designed to meet the requirements of a particular scenario. This allows them to be directional, or omni-directional, and with a coverage of up to 100m. ANPR detectors, in contrast, are unidirectional and therefore to cover both directions of a carriageway at least two cameras are required (often more are required to cover multiple lanes). To get a clear view of number plates, the two cameras will often also need to be mounted on separate poles. Bluetooth doesn't rely on line of sight to vehicle number plates; the installation location is therefore more flexible and may potentially be incorporated into existing street furniture. The above advantages result in:

• A smaller number of detectors required for a given level of coverage (half, at minimum) and therefore a lower capital cost of installation compared with ANPR.
• A lower requirement for infrastructure (poles) and hence a lower capital cost of installation as detectors can be at street level.
• A smaller maintenance overhead thanks to fewer units, less cleaning, and less (potentially more accessible) infrastructure.

"We are very excited about the possibilities in using Bluetooth data in our products. The opportunities for the data include journey times, detectors, origin and destination survey data and people throughout." - remarked Richard Thurbin, Cloud Amber's Technical Director.

Download the adaptor's specification - PDF 669KB.

Visit the adaptor's new page.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 85KB

Q1 Should the UTMC initiative continue? Why

Yes. There is value in an industry body focusing on getting value from implementing transport management systems in a UK environment.

Q2 Are there specific activities which a continuing UTMC initiative needs to undertake?

Yes. Cloud Amber believes UTMC should focus operational and implementation best practice.

For example, the industry seems very fragmented in the way it manages journey times. This is in terms of monitoring, measuring and changing the way it goes about managing it. A series of workshops focusing on the collection, processing, management, reporting on this data could result in tangible benefits to journey times, thus providing a clear business case for systems and their expansion.
I believe integration is a weak case for procuring a UTMC system, where as if UTMC could demonstrate a 15% reduction in journey times after a successful implementation, it is almost a ‘no brainer'.

Q3 Should the technical aspects of UTMC continue in essentially their current form? If not, please indicate what changes you believe are necessary.

I am glad you asked and our answer is absolutely not.

There are a few things technically which are really holding back UTMC. The first is CORBA and the second is the Common Database.

CORBA - Depending on exactly when one starts counting, CORBA is about 10-15 years old. During its lifetime, CORBA has moved from being a bleeding-edge technology for early adopters, to being a popular middleware, to being a niche technology that exists in relative obscurity. Anyone interested in UTMC and CORBA should read this article on the Rise and Fall of CORBA: http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1142044

When speaking to companies outside of the UTMC world and mention CORBA, most don't know what it is and those that do ask if I am being serious. This technology is holding back integration, making interfaces far too complicated, each one is different and finally (and most worryingly) support and development for CORBA within the development industry as a whole has been almost stagnant for years. To highlight my point, we have 175 adaptors in the field and we have written them all except one. That was written by another UTMC supplier for a hardware manufacturer. Good for us, bad for the industry.

UTMC needs to ditch CORBA and move forward with XML & SOAP. More widely supported, understood, far easier to integrate and has much more investment within the IT industry in defining standards, tools and applications. Also, I know about free flow, but I have a slightly different dislike of that which I will come on to.

Common Database - The inherent design of "everything must go through a database" is severely limiting the scale of any UTMC system. Data should be processed and flow through systems using memory and processors, not disks and tables. I found this out to my cost back in 2001 when designing a real time schedule adherence system for Buses. Instead we re-developed the back end business processes avoiding all database interaction and managed to increase capacity from 200 buses to over 10,000.

Databases are storage and retrieval mechanisms for data, not conduits for real time information. UTMC should not have a definition for the common database, nor should implementers have to implement them. UTMC should define a series of data objects and interface mechanisms in which third parties can interface to. Much like RIG XML and CEN SIRI, thus avoiding the issue. Unfortunately Freeflow is not this but just defines a different mechanism to get data in to and out of the database.

Because of these limitations we have implemented ours very differently under the lid, however the through of a "standard" UTMC implementation for the HA's infrastructure makes me laugh.

Compliance - well UTMC is a broad and wide ranging standard which tries to encompass all of Urban Traffic. The whole point of the Department for Transport prime funded project was aimed at creating a set of protocols aimed at opening up the urban traffic market to further competition. This has resulted in creating an industry where there is a wider choose of suppliers and products in the market for ALL traffic management systems.

The real target was not for ANPR to talk to air quality systems but to break the quasi monopoly that existed in the urban traffic control (UTC) segment. The supplier which implements the control system still has a 100% monopoly on on-street controllers and other such equipment. Ok so that hasn't worked, but let's looks at UTMC database compliancy instead...

Given the fact the UK uses the Gregorian, connecting to a common database and using a date should be easy right? "Ah" I hear you cry, but there are many different formats for a date. Fair enough. "But surely there is a common standard for dates?" I hear you cry. Yes, infact there is and it is called ISO 8601. "Well then it is simple surely, a UTMC system should support ISO 8601?" Of course not, that would be too easy. Bizarrely, UTMC does define the use of a Julian date in the CORBA IDL. Is this format used for date formats in SQL strings? Of course not.
Instead UTMC has this ridiculous situation where it is up to each and every independent supplier to use a Julian date for CORBA but dream up their own date formats for SQL. When integrating in to a system in the West Country, the incumbent supplier was not using ISO 8601 or indeed any other of the recognised date formats. Instead an vendor specific function had to be used within the SQL it's self in order to get it in to the common database! As a result we have 4 different versions of our "UTMC standard interface" in order to achieve integration.
We did create a "UTMC Compliance Analyser" and offered to the industry as a free and open source validation tool. It is a shame this wasn't taken up and we are still left with the position where everyone claims they are compliant whist asserting all of their competitors are non-compliant. What is the point of a non-verifiable standard? Very little if you ask me.

The Standard - has been defined, used and implemented specifically for an individual authority and was implemented as such for years and years. Back in 2006, within months of operating, Cloud Amber had linked our first system together. We did this in a fully UTMC compliant method using full UTMC protocols. The technical minded amongst you may wonder how this was done without somehow changing the standard, given its inherent limitations. With cleaver logic, software, security and permissions it is perfectly possible to do so each sub system, system, user and interface remains completely compliant, the database is fully compliant and no one is any the wiser! I have managed to achieve over 20 systems linked to date using this method.

To overcome this, at one of the first ANPR workshops I tried to convince the assembled nobility that when defining this standard we should consider the possibility that ANPR systems may be shared across county boundaries and perhaps we should define a identification regime which allowed for this to take place. I was quickly dismissed, ignored and then not even invited back to the next workshop! I did chuckle to myself when the very last version of the standard included some concession for this feature in a version 18 months later.

In summary - the standard is arcane, forgotten by the IT industry, inherently hard to integrate, slow, un-scalable, difficult to share data and failed to achieve its objectives in the beginning. It is supported by companies with deep rooted vested interests in keeping barriers to entry high, integration hard and the standard as loose and woolly as possible. Compliance is a joke and there is no will to change.
There is a grown up traffic standard defined and used throughout Europe and it is called DatexII. If my customers were to define DatexII systems they would find a larger product set, competitively priced, widely supported with new innovative and easy to use integration. It doesn't define a database but well formed, understood data structures and interfaces in order to achieve simple and easy integration.

Q4 Should the non-technical aspects of UTMC continue in essentially their current form? If not, please indicate what changes you believe are necessary.

Yes, but more work shop orientated rather than a yearly large conference.

Q5 Are the identified Scenarios reasonable ones to consider? If not, please indicate why.

Yes. UTMC has to change otherwise it will become more and more irrelevant in today's cash strapped times.

Q6 Are Scenarios 1-5 prioritised sensibly? If not, please indicate why.

No.

• Option 1 is carrying on with the status quo with no change or innovation. 
• Option 2 goes against the very reason it was set up. I also see little value in the IP it has created to date, especially given more advanced, encompassing and wider markets are available with European standards. 
• Option 3 is our preferred option, with the technical elements removed, taken care of by European standards organisations and the UDG focusing on providing industry best practice. 
• Option 4 is difficult to understand as it does not detail what would change. The merging of RTIG Inform and UTMC has always been the most obvious choice and may start the integration of public and private transport or Unified Transport Management Control (as we have always seen it as such). 
• Option 5 is giving up and not accepting change.

We would prioritise the options as follows:
1. Option 3 (with caveats)
2. Option 4
3. Option 5
4. Option 1 & Option 2

Q7 Are there other scenarios that we should be considering? If so, which?

Yes, just the slightly revised option 3 above.

Q8 Is a professional secretariat necessary? Why?

Yes, but in a much reduced capacity. I see the role as facilitating discussions and workshops around best practice and best value.

Specific questions
Q9 In a commercial model, who might pay and what would they pay for?

We would take no part in this model.

Q10 Is it feasible and desirable to take UTMC commercial? If so, please indicate whether this should be done by the UDG or by another party.

We do not believe so. The proposal goes against the very reason the UDG was set up. It will create another SCOOT where it is impossible for any new entries in to the market; the standard will stagnate even further and become very expensive for all concerned.

I also see little value in the IP it has created to date, especially given more advanced, encompassing and wider markets are available with European standards. The only reason for this is the lack of innovation, change and development of the standard since its first release.
On a separate but related note, we were astonished to find that the UTMC body doesn't recognise or hold any information on this first release, even though the 10 year old case studies on the web site continue to extol it's virtues.

Q11 Which secretariat functions could be delivered through voluntary mechanisms? By whom?

I do not see how a voluntary system would work, other than a large organisation taking a lead role, such as a large local authority or Quango.

Q12 Which other organisations could UTMC feasibly be gifted to?

The merging of RTIG Inform and UTMC has always been the most obvious choice and may start the integration of public and private transport or Unified Transport Management Control (as we have always seen it as such).

Q13 Would another organisation be in a better position to raise external funding, or secure the necessary support services on a voluntary basis, than the UDG? If yes, which, and why?

We don't believe so.

Q14 If UTMC were gifted to another organisation, what should happen to the UDG?

It should be disbanded.

Q15 If UTMC closed down, for how long should the current Specification be kept available?

Web space is cheap so I see no reason for it to continue in a archived static state for 10 years. Cloud Amber would be happy to host the archive or a mirror of the archive for the industry if this was not possible.

You can down load the letter here: The Future of UTMC, Cloud Amber's Response (pdf, 75KB).

We look forward to the UDG's response.

The team were obviously over the moon with the news and almost started popping the Champaign corks. Unfortunately there was a 'but', and a big one at that. The system needs to be installed, up, running, working and fully signed off in two weeks!

"Now we usually install, commission and sign off a system within six weeks from order", remarked Cloud Amber's Operations Director Mike Wells, "to have the system up and running in two weeks needed not only everything to go smoothly within our own deployment team, but also for Traffic Wales to provide the required IT support within days."

In an unprecedented timescale, Traffic Wales's IT had servers and systems in place within hours and Cloud Amber's team began the job of installing and commissioning the system immediately.

"After more than a few weekends, late nights and much midnight oil, the team pulled together and delivered the system on time, working and fully signed off. This was great achievement by all and a true example of how partnership can work between two parties aiming for a common goal." - Mike Wells, our slightly bleary eyed Operations Director.

Traffic Wales are responsible for all trunk roads (main A roads and motorways) throughout the whole of Wales. With a considerable network of their own, there are also obvious and important links with England's counterpart, the Highways Agency.

"The Traffic Wales contract represents a new stage in Cloud Amber's business development. As an established and highly regarded supplier of UTMC and ITS systems, our first national trunk road highways contract brings the company to a whole new level. Cloud Amber is no longer considered a risk to small or large government authorities, Cloud Amber continues to grow within the UK with strong financials, strong leadership and a highly innovative product." - Richard Thurbin, Cloud Amber's Technical Director

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 101KB

• roadworks that might affect their journey, including an indication of how much disruption they are causing
• other travel disruptions, such as emergency road closures
• levels of congestion
• train times and real-time information on some bus routes
• events that may generate a lot of traffic, such as Hampton Court Flower Show and the Epsom Derby
• car park locations and capacity, including for certain sites the number of spaces available
• locations of bus stops and train stations
• bus and train departure times
• information displayed on the council's roadside information signs, such as warnings about congestion on key routes

The site also enables people to report traffic signal faults, with the facility to pin down the exact signal location on a map. The council is hoping to add the facility for reporting other kinds of faults, such as potholes.

Ian Lake, the council's Cabinet Member for Transport, said:
"We are very proud to be launching this new website which will help our residents and people visiting the county decide how and when to make their journeys. This will not only make travelling less stressful, but should also contribute to easing the congestion on roads, as people will have better information about disruption and jams to avoid. As time goes by we'll be looking to add new features and make improvements to provide Surrey residents with as much information as possible."

Mike Wells, Cloud Amber's Operational Director said:
"We are very proud to be helping Surrey County Council enhance their services to the public by providing our state of the art Voyager Travel Portal. We look forward to working very closely together, continuing to innovate and provide best value service we possibly can."

Visitors to the site are encouraged to give their views on the service by completing the on-line survey.

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable transport managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 144KB

Building on our existing relationship, Bradford Metropolitan District Council has awarded Cloud Amber their recent tender for UTMC Variable Message System. Building on their existing Argonaut Common Database, four variable message signs and our innovative Journey Times Engine will be installed and commissioned, offering traffic engineers the ability to display journey times and inform the public about any expected delays.

"We are all overjoyed that our relationship with Bradford Highways continues to go from strength to strength. At Cloud Amber try our very best to deliver on our promises, this contract builds on all of our hard work and dedication over the last three years." - James Hewetson, Commercial Director.

Over the next few months, our Operations Team working very closely with our variable message sign partners Dambach, will be installing and commissioning four signs and the Journey Times Engine, with acceptance tests scheduled for early March 2010.

"With our second variable message sign contract under our belt, this firmly establishes Cloud Amber as a credible force within this section of the UTMC market and paves the way for more UTMC Common Database lead VMS tenders in the future." - Richard Thurbin, Technical Director.

Our second New Year cheer is from the West Country and Somerset County Council. Adding to our existing twenty two systems, this new country re-affirms Cloud Amber as the second largest UTMC supplier in the UK and continues to build on our strength and presence in the West of England.

For Somerset we shall be integrating their urban traffic control, automatic number plate recognition systems and providing our Arognaut Command and Control plus Voyager Travel Portal.

"In a lot of ways this inital small system was very similar to Bradford and will allow Somerset to build off and continually improve over the next months and years." - Mike Wells, Operations Director. 

ENDS

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber's products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network, all using UTMC, RTIG, SIRI and other industry protocols.

Current Cloud Amber Systems In Amber

For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 188KB

The Journey

Looking back is something that comes quite unnatural to the Cloud Amber board. However we do remember our first contract was for a small Argonaut system in Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council. At the time the development team consisted of just one! After our success in Bradford, we secured further work, small jobs and contracts, gradually expanding our customer base and product set.

"The Dorset County Council project was our first large scale UTMC deployment. With over 7 or 8 adaptors, Strategy Manager, Argonaut Mobile, Document Manager, Filters, it provided us with a great challenge and really catapulted our product to being one of the best on the market." - James Hewetson, Commercial Director

Following on from our success in Dorset, more recently delivering Cambridgeshire County Council (to a very demanding customer) and then highly innovative Oxfordshire County Council system, with yet more innovative, complicated and demanding features.

"The Oxfordshire system is now being presented and talked about throughout the UTMC industry as an example of car park, variable message sign and journey time best practice and an example for others to follow." - Mike Wells, Operations Director

There have been other noticeable successes such as the South Yorkshire Intelligent Transport System Dissemination project. Cloud Amber was up against giants such as Mott MacDonalds, Telent and Logica, all multinational, multimillion pound corporations so the spot light was on us to deliver. We are pleased to report that the launch of the Travel South Yorkshire Get There Sooner portal has been a success and is currently being seen as the UK's best multi modal real time travel portal on the internet today.

"Now with over twenty three systems deployed in the field, from being the smallest UTMC supplier in the UK, we are now comfortably the second largest with ambitions to be the largest within the next year. " - Richard Thurbin, Technical Director

The Future

The global recession has hit the UK hard but Cloud Amber is in prime position. The board feel the key to Cloud Amber's future success is to continue to innovate within the transport sector, bring further products on to the market as well as further adapt and improve our existing product set.

"We are perusing a number of large scale sales leads. These include a regional bus scheduling package for the midlands and the north of England, a car park pre and post payment system, asset and fault management as well as products which reduce our customer's yearly revenue spend. " - James Hewetson, Commercial Director

"We are confident we have the team in the UK and abroad to achieve continued success and expansion throughout the coming years. Thank you to all of our team, supporters and customers for your part in making Cloud Amber the success it is today." - Richard Thurbin, Technical Director

Notes for Editors

Cloud Amber

1. Cloud Amber are committed to minimising the environmental impact of travel whilst enabling the unhindered movement of people necessary for a revitalising economy. We aim to revolutionise the way data and information are accessed through the open provision of informationto the widest possible audience in the format, style and content most suited to their needs.
2. Cloud Amber products enable Traffic Managers to model, monitor and control the environmental effects of travel as well as reducing congestion to maximise the use of a limited road network. From this same data source Cloud Amber provide our Voyager products and services relating to accidents, roadworks, congestion, air quality and the state of the road network in general to empower road users to make informed travel decisions to avoid congestion hotspots.

 For more information and images please contact:

            Richard Thurbin, Technical Director, Mobile: +44 (0) 7917 704 145

Downloadable version - PDF 124KB