Highways England has placed an order for a new central traffic signal control and management system with Simulation Systems Limited (SSL) to meet the immediate and future requirements of its motorway and major A-roads in the south-east.

Integral to this order is Siemens Stratos, which is claimed to be the UK’s first cloud-hosted, fully integrated traffic control and management solution; and Hosted-SCOOT, a real time and adaptive traffic control system that is already being used to manage and co-ordinate traffic control for 76 UK authorities, including the control of several current junctions of Highways England.

Replacing the existing control system for the M25, the Siemens Stratos system will bring the control of sites in central southern England and the south east under the control of the new system, which enables expansion capacity for other regional areas.

"We are delighted to be awarded this prestigious contract that will provide Highways England with a future proofed solution with capacity and the potential to expand the service around the country."

The development roadmap will deliver a new traffic signals module to Highways England from this month.

This module when connected to the latest generation of IP outstations will provide the functionality earlier offered by the two separate systems on a single platform.

This offers Highways England a single hosted solution for both real time control and monitoring.

The hosted system can be accessed through secure internet based connections, thereby offering the flexibility to operate the system from several locations by several operators.

SSL managing director Louis Thompson said: "We are delighted to be awarded this prestigious contract that will provide Highways England with a future proofed solution with capacity and the potential to expand the service around the country."

SSL will commence the roll-out of the Stratos equipment across the regions in the coming months.