Highways England, which is responsible for management and the maintenance of England’s trunk roads, needed to upgrade the route’s existing signs with a system that was more reliable and durable. It turned to infrastructure support services group Amey and SWARCO to provide the solution.
Chris Keatley, SWARCO’s traffic project manager, said the existing signs were in urgent need of upgrading. “They had to be taken down and repaired multiple times in the past few years. Every time they needed to redirect traffic or communicate key messages and information for motorists, it required somebody to attend the site in person and perform the task manually, which requires significant resource, labour and cost,” he said.
Messages can be updated remotely at the touch of a button from a desktop or mobile and, importantly, are equipped with a de-icing feature to avoid seizing up during winter.
“This scheme was the first phase of the diversion route improvements and over the next few years we hope to replace all the existing signs with SWARCO units,” said Paul Clark, Highways England’s project manager for the northern counties of Cumbria and North Lancashire.
Prism signs use rotating planks of aluminium to display up to three messages, such as warning of diversion routes or road closures, semi-permanent pedestrian zones or where preset messages are needed to alternate.
