Amey has secured more than £700,000 in funding from Highways England for a project to design an Impact Protection Vehicle (IPV).
The IPV is designed to protect roadworks from traffic on live carriageways by removing the requirement for workers to be on the ground when deploying traffic management.
Amey says that the IPV will be capable of working in live road lanes, removing risk to engineers and road users.
Currently traffic management installation is a manual operation.
The additional £759,000 in funding will allow Amey to create a 3D schematic model of the vehicle and its deployable crash cushions as well as a collision simulation model.
James Haluch, managing director for highways and waste collections at Amey, said: “Our teams have been researching and trialling the latest technology to create an impact protection vehicle that will protect our workforce whilst working on a live network.
“This latest round of funding will enable the team to progress to phase two of the project to complete the detailed design of a prototype.
“We have made great strides in the project to date, completing collision simulation modelling, exploring the use of virtual reality technology to operate the crane and sign deployment as well as reviewing and modifying the deployment mechanisms of the crash cushions.”
Amey has been working with several organisations including Highways England, Coventry University and the Manufacturing and Technology Centre to develop the IPV.
