£10m test facility shapes future road transport systems
A NEW test track has been created at the home of motor industry research body MIRA in Nuneaton following a £10m investment.
The innovITS ADVANCE facility is a futuristic research and development centre specifically for testing intelligent transport systems and offers users the chance to simulate virtually any road environment in the world.
The new facility is designed for use by businesses from the telecommunications, automotive and electronics industries, as well as highways authorities and operators.
It is hoped the new centre will enable significant advances to be made in the safety and sustainability of future road transportation strategies.
The centre, officially opened by David Pearson, chairman of innovITS, offers users a ‘virtual city’ simulation capable of replicating almost any type of street environment from skyscraper neighbourhoods typical of London’s Docklands or Lower Manhattan, to mixed suburban development.
The network is equipped with roadside architecture including traffic signals configured for left and right side traffic circulation, CCTV and catwalk gantries allowing installation of overhead equipment for testing, monitoring and signage.
The road network is combined with multi-zoned Wi-Fi, and GSM, GPRS and 3G private stand-alone mobile telecoms networks and Wi-Fi mesh system that can be configured according to the precise needs of particular tests.
This enables new products to be tested in precisely controlled conditions for robustness and fault tolerance.
Mr Pearson said: “The launch of innovITS ADVANCE marks a highly significant milestone for the advancement of sustainability in road transportation.
“It will facilitate the development of ITS products and services aimed at delivering benefits ranging from the more efficient use of road space to increased safety through the mitigation or avoidance of road traffic collisions.
“The world’s first dedicated ITS development centre, innovITS ADVANCE will enable, for the first time, engineers from the automotive, telematics, telecoms and transportation sectors to work together (on) new technologies and innovations that might otherwise never reach the market.”
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