GeoPlace Working with the Department of Transport to Keep Britain Moving

The Department for Transport supported by GeoPlace, the British Parking Association and Ordnance Survey are conducting a discovery into the process by which Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) are made, and how TRO data is made available and used across the country.

Councils use TROs to implement changes on the road network. They are used for a range of diverse activities such as changing features on the road like signs and speed limits, implementing parking restrictions and limiting the movements of HGVs in residential areas, allowing temporary closures for street parties, roadworks, and experimental changes.

Abbas Lokat, Senior Consultant at GeoPlace, said “Better visibility of traffic regulations and access to additional information and services can help improve the citizen experience and increase innovation around traffic control. We want to understand if there is a growing demand for open, machine-readable traffic regulation orders from users and developers looking to improve parking information for citizens to freight companies needing to route their fleets more effectively.”

The discovery will gather real-world evidence to see how the TRO process is working, helping to identify how to deliver the most from the current system and how to support the transport network of the future.

Using the evidence gathered from the discovery, a free guide will be produced to help local authorities understand how they can work within the limits of current legislation based on best practice. A further output will be a draft data model for TROs, compatible with both Connected and Automated Vehicles and the international TRO landscape, supporting the move towards TROs being easily accessible to the public whether using apps of driving connected vehicles.