About

This is intended to be a place holder for all thoughts on UTMC, Common Databases, UTMC Standards, UTMC Compliance and other UTMC bits and pieces.

This site will be updated regularly with all the latest goings on in UTMC.

About the author - Richard Thurbin

Technical Director - Cloud Amber Limited 2006-to date

RichardThurbinCo-founded Cloud Amber to offer a range of products and services focused on the intelligent transport systems market. Responsible for all technical and marketing  aspects of the company including product development, vision and strategy. The current product portfolio includes enterprise level database systems and servers, fully integrated system inputs and management, cutting edge consumer outputs using the latest mobile and multimedia technologies. Successful examples of system deliveries, integrations and support include South Yorkshire PTE, Surrey County Council and Oxfordshire County Council, where multiple systems have been seamlessly integrated in to a coherent and reliable platform for the future.

Skilled and experienced in technical and business partnering, consultancy, outsourcing, intellectual property management, programme management and all other aspects of product and project delivery.

Major successes included:

  • grew business from scratch to over £1.1m pa turnover,
  • from zero to market leading UTMC provider in 4 years,
  • the first UK UTMC alerts & SMS service,
  • successful integration of complex 3rd party customer system into portfolio,
  • developed market leading performance based dynamic command and control systems.

Head of Product Development - ACIS 1999 - 2006

Headed the Research and Development team 35 engineers. with an annual spend of £2.2m per year at ACIS, the UK's leading Real Time Information provider to the Bus Industry. The role included all research, development and support activity, stretching over 130 products and 150 components and ensuring that these products complied with all relevant standards and stayed abreast of new technology. Awards during this period included the Queens Award for Enterprise, the Bus Industry Award for Innovation and the Secretary General Award for outstanding achievement in the field of travel information.

Leading a team of testers, developers and 3rd Party contractors. Responsible from cradle to grave development of diverse product portfolio, from bespoke low level hardware to high level management databases within highly complex internal systems. This role also included working closely with customers and the Sales Team to develop totally new concepts whilst ensuring realistic and achievable products.

Working with and helped define industry standards such as RTIG XML, RTIG TransXchange, RTIG Traffic Light Priority & Local Cleardown and RTIG Bi-directional ETM Specification to develop protocols to ensure system interoperability. Board level reviews of projects with reports on status, quality and budget, managing risks inline with project tolerances, contingency plans and managed project change.

Major successes included:

  • the first UK real time passenger SMS service,
  • successful integration of complex 3rd party customer system into portfolio,
  • Market leading performance based dynamic and historic fleet management reports for bus operators,
  • re-development of digital audio on bus  product to dramatically reduce maintenance costs,
  • defining national standards.

Contact Richard Thurbin

The simplest way is to simply use the phone. Try ringing 0044 (0) 7917 704 145. If that doesnt work then email richard -at- cloudamber -dot- com, replacing the words with punctuation as apropriate. Lastly you can Skype using the Skype ID 'cloud.amber.development'.