World-leading technology aimed at combating traffic congestion and pollution in York will be unveiled by City of York Council today (Wednesday, December 4) in advance of a major conference in the city.

The national urban traffic management control (UTMC) conference is being staged in York for the first time - as the first part of the council's unique UTMC system is rolled out at Rawcliffe.

The conference, at St William's College tomorrow, will bring together transport professionals and IT experts from across Britain and Europe who are working to harness new technology to improve traffic movement in urban areas. The conference is also attracting wider international interest from places like Australia and Indonesia.

As well as hosting the conference, City of York Council has taken a leading role in a project which will soon see the latest technology making life easier for the city's motorists.

The council is leading the way with its sophisticated, government-backed £4m UTMC project - part of the council's £50m Local Transport Plan.

The system includes state-of-the-art messaging equipment, a dedicated web site and the £500,000 Bus Location and Information Sub System (BLISS) providing 'real time' information to bus stops and other displays and cutting down delays by altering traffic signals.

The system will be rolled out over the next two years. The first phase starts this week on the A19 at Rawcliffe with the activation of traffic information monitors to collate information on traffic flows.

Councillor Tracey Simpson-Laing, City of York Council's executive member for transport, said, "Using state-of-the-art technology gives us a fantastic opportunity to help ease the problem of congestion on our road network.

"Council officers have worked intensively on this over the last two years and succeeded in developing a set of world-leading tools that we can now use to manage traffic across the whole city."

Tomorrow's conference, sponsored by the Department for Transport, will be addressed by George Hazel, managing director of McClean Hazel Limited and vice chairman and executive board member of the Institution of Highways and Transportation (IHT).

There will be presentations from demonstrator projects within the UK and on the delivery of integrated traffic management in Berlin. Delegates will have the opportunity to view a fully-working example of the system to be rolled out in York. This is based on the A19 Shipton Road and Bootham areas.

Dave Caulfield, the council's acting head of transport planning, said, "The new tools will give us for the first time the potential to reduce our air quality problems and also to give buses priority without the need for major bus lanes or priority lights."

And Julie Hurley, the council's principal traffic engineer, who is speaking at the conference, said, "Our new tools will allow us to understand exactly what traffic is doing at any moment in time, what the actual capacity is within all of our car parks and what the air quality is like throughout the city.

"Armed with that information and more, we will not only be able to tell everyone precisely what is going on but will be able to put in place traffic signal strategies to control the network more effectively."

The new system will also ensure that motorists will be able to get real-time information from a network of road-side variable message signs and the dedicated web site will provide a wealth of real-time advice to help journey planning.

Councillor Simpson-Laing said residents could help cut traffic jams by choosing alternatives like buses or cycling and walking. But, she said, "Nobody willingly wants to drive into a traffic jam. Telling people where the jams are will allow individuals to change their routes or hopefully, how they travel around.

"We know how frustrating driving can be for York's residents which is why we made the decision to be one of the first cities to use new technology to ease congestion."

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Notes for Editors: The Conference is the 5th Annual Urban Traffic Management Control (UTMC) conference. The purpose is to share information regarding the use of new IT based technology in managing traffic. The Department for Transport (DfT) launched (in 1997) a six-year research programme to help local authorities make the most of modern information and communication technologies to reduce congestion and other traffic problems. The York element of this project is part of a £multi million Traffic Congestion Management System(TCMS) being introduced as part of the nationally acclaimed Local Transport Plan. The initial use of the UTMC tools will be in the A19 Shipton Road and Bootham areas but will over the next few years be rolled out right across the whole city to give York a unique position as being the only fully instrumented city in the whole world. When complete, every car park and Park and Ride in the city will be measuring real time capacity information. Some 25 air quality monitors and all 90 traffic signals will be connected. Information will be supplied both through a dedicated web site and through some 31 variable message signs. Through satellite links to everyone of York's 97 buses, actual information about the number of passengers on board each bus and if the bus is running early or late, will be used to give special priority to buses at key traffic signal junctions. Passengers at important bus stops will also be able to see exactly when their bus will arrive through the use of special bus stop indicator boards.