Safety drive: £12m ploughed into anti-crash tech

Intelligent transport systems which can cut the number of car crashes and improve road network management are to get a £12m research funding boost.

The Future Intelligent Transport Systems initiative aims to provide funds for new ideas that will improve road safety by reducing crashes and increase efficiency in the road freight industry. Other projects that could get the funding include ideas to improve road network management or provide better travel information.

The Department for Transport (DfT), Department of Trade and Industry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will provide £9m of funding, with a further £3m expected from industry itself.

DTI minister for science and innovation Lord Sainsbury said in a statement: "This initiative will bring together UK industry and universities to address key research issues for the longer-term development of the UK transport system."

Separately the DfT is spending £4.1m on a research project aimed at reducing traffic pollution through the use of mobile sensors.

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The aim of the project is to use pedestrians and buses to act as mobile sensors, collecting vital real-time air quality data. The project will use the "vast amounts" of data collected to show how such things as weather, street design and driving behaviour affect the build-up of traffic pollution.

The sensors carried by pedestrians will be small enough to slip into a pocket, while the bus sensors will be the size of shoeboxes.

Minister for transport, Stephen Ladyman, said in a statement: "We all now live in a data rich world and it is important that we have robust methods for handling this data, in real time. This project will enable the development of technologies to manage our transport systems as efficiently and effectively as possible."