SunGard Vivista has been awarded a five-year contract by the Highways Agency (HA), via Computacenter, to supply a nationwide Command, Control and Communications service to support its new Regional Control Centres (RCCs).
Primarily SunGard Vivista will supply, integrate, commission and support a system to underpin the traffic operations service on all English motorways and strategic trunk roads. Kevin Chevis, SunGard Vivista sales and marketing director, said, "Our leadership position in the public safety control room sector has been reinforced by this award which takes us outside the confines of our traditional emergency services sector and into a new and exciting area. We look forward to working with the Highways Agency and helping them to establish a new level of service excellence for the country’s motorway and trunk road users."
Command & Control (C&C)
The HA has procured the NSPIS C&C system, developed by SunGard Vivista. This is the national C&C solution for the police, which is sponsored by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO). NSPIS C&C is in service or on order, with Cheshire, Derbyshire, Humberside, Lincolnshire, British Transport Police and the MoD Police and is proving to be a resilient and responsive application, which sets new standards in improved officer safety and efficiency, it is claimed. The C&C system will provide a dual-screen desktop to display application dialogues and a real-time map of incident and resource locations.
Some background
In 2002 the HA and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) jointly commissioned a review to determine which organisation should perform the functions needed to manage traffic on motorways and strategic trunk roads in England. The review concluded that many activities performed by the police should pass to the HA, with the police retaining responsibility for any areas where crime could be involved.
In 2003, the HA established a project to allow it to resume these responsibilities. The project is delivering up to seven new regional control centres, the supporting technology, a fleet of vehicles, uniformed traffic officers and the associated business change programme. The Traffic Management Bill will provide officers with the necessary powers to undertake their role.
