I was one of the few to battled through the sleet and snow to
attend the joint UTMC/RTIG workshop hosted by Kent. Given the
travel disruption that has been going on the last few months I am
not surprised many decided to stay in their nice and warm office
rather than risk getting stuck on the M20 or on Maidenhead platform
indefinitely. Unfortunately some of the no-shows were speakers
themselves which meant the agenda had to get re-gigged on the fly -
old agenda.
The first part of the day focused on the Kent system which I
very much enjoyed. There was a little too much emphasis on
suppliers for my taste but that being said the content was
relevant, focused, to the point and well structured. I think those
of the audience not familiar with the subject matter would have
gained a great amount from it. I will be interested to hear how the
launch of the bus smart card goes and if their neighbouring
authorities will adopt a similar scheme. Clearly Medway has the
most to gain, however East Sussex also has strong links with
Kent.
After lunch we all heard about how the Highways Agency is
linking Kent together with their South Eastern Regional Control
Centre in Godstone, Surrey. It is great to see this kind of
initiative happening and can only be good for the UTMC industry. I
was slightly perturbed by the inference that there was likely to be
only one or two supplier for common databases with in the HA. Given
the open nature of the industry and the standard I would hope that
there could be more competition and opportunity for young guns like
us, rather than automatically sticking with the same old same old
establishment. Competition is good for the market, good for us and
good for our customers. What is good though is the HA intend to
develop the UTMC standard further to include ramp metering and
other more trunk road based objects. I look forward to getting
stuck in to those new objects shortly.
In one of the later presentations, there was a plea from one of
the speakers to produce a RTPI object within the UTMC standard. I
must admit I was quite taken aback by this, given the work the RTIG
group have done over 10 years on RTIG XML and latterly CEN SIRI. If
you ask me, CEN SIRI is perfect for all UTMC's RTPI needs and we
should stick to that standard, rather than re-inventing another
wheel.