Highways Agency represented at Project MESA Meeting - High-bandwidth Comms for Incident Management

Date: 5/2/2009

Sources: www.projectmesa.org

Linear Communications and WSP gave a presentation on the ongoing efforts in applying the Project MESA initiative to the Highways Agency’s Traffic Officer Service, at the 17th bi-annual Project MESA meeting. The meeting was held on 13th - 15th January 2009, in Sophia Antipolis, southern France.

Project MESA is an international standardisation forum for the development of broadband wireless communications for use in incident management and disaster response. It aims to design a self-establishing, self-healing digital mobile broadband network, which can be used at "hotspots", such as road accidents, natural disasters and chemical spills.

The presentation said that the “HA is examining the use of mobile broadband technologies to assist with:

o        Improved interworking between the HA & the emergency services, through enhanced communications

o        Rapid clearing of accidents

o        Timely provision of accident location & severity information to the public”.

The HA’s own ‘MESA’ project is looking at the MESA standard and its potential for use on the strategic roads network. Particular benefits in improving communication and interworking between other ‘blue light’ services include:

o        Database access and downloadable information (e.g. HAZCHEM, lorry manifests etc.)

o        Maps & traffic management information (e.g. diversions & cone locations)

o        High quality still images at incidents

o        High quality video images at incidents, from both moving and static vehicles.

The project aims to deliver improved incident management and co-ordination through seamless information sharing between the HA and the emergency services.

The presentation showed how the first vehicle arriving on the scene establishes itself as a communication node. Then, as vehicles arrive at the scene, a broadband network is automatically created with no user intervention required. The network re-configures and ‘self-heals’ as vehicles arrive and leave the scene.

The HA project is in its 3rd phase, “Raising awareness amongst the wider public safety community”. Phase 4, “Initial deployment and participation from other public safety users” is programmed for 2010 to 2011; Phase 5 “National roll-out for Traffic Officers” is currently planned in the region of 2014.

Other groups that have expressed an interest during the project communication activities include the Department of Health (DoH) in September 2008, and the Chief Fire Officers Association in December 2008.

Other highlights of the meeting included a report from the Steering Committee (SC), as well as discussions on current work items in both the Service Specification Group (SSG) and the Technical Specification Group (TSG). Project MESA is an open collaboration between various organisations and detailed documentation can be found at www.projectmesa.org.

The Linear Communications / WSP presentation can be found here. Further information can be found here and in the ITS Radar International MESA Factsheet (April 07).

ITS Radar International will continue to monitor developments in Project MESA

Keywords: Communications, Emergency, Incident, Safety, Standard