Tenshi, Staffordshire County Council, Amey and Elgin have announced the winner of their 'Dare to Solve' roadworks contest, which sought to find innovative digital solutions to help better inform and communicate with the public about upcoming and ongoing roadworks. The successful business, Beepz.me, has been awarded £10,000 to help them develop their technology.
The winning company was selected following the contest final event which saw three finalists pitching to a panel of challenge partners and industry experts. In addition to funding, Beepz.me have won the opportunity to develop a prototype of their idea alongside some of the leading forces in infrastructure services, while keeping 100 percent of their intellectual property.
Beepz.me’s solution will tackle the issue of roadworks by providing a tailorable platform for road users to receive information and live updates on planned and emergency works on their routes, in advance of travel, directly to their smartphone.
The contest was run as part of the Innovate UK-funded Staffordshire Connected Roadworks Project aimed at increasing collaboration between roadworks planners, infrastrastruture managers and utility companies to enable more joined up ways of delivering roadworks.
Mark Deaville, Staffordshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport, said:
“Staffordshire County Council is committed to improving the travel experience for road users and mitigating the impact of roadworks on the lives of residents, businesses and vistors to the region. Through this collaborative trial with Beepz.me, Amey, and Elgin, we’ll be better able to more strategically communicate our essential works to make our roads better for Staffordshire residents.”
James Manning, CEO of Beepz.me, said:
“This is a fantastic opportunity to enable road users to obtain and receive information on roadworks which affect their journey. The information will be tailored, relevant and most of all useful. We are looking forward to collaborating with all of the challenge partners to deliver this solution and reducing the pain of roadworks.”
Simon Hunt, Principal Delivery Manager – Smart Data and Technology for Amey, said:
“At Amey, our goal is to create better places to live, work and travel. Beepz.me is a great example of how we can use mobile technology to take us closer to that goal.
"We'd like to congratulate the team behind the app on their win and say that we’re looking forward to working with them to trial their solution with data from the Staffordshire Connected Roadworks Project.
"The data we leverage from that project and feed into the app will ultimately help residents and businesses in Staffordshire better understand the impact to their regular journeys from roadworks in their area, thereby improving journey times and helping to avoid disruption."
It is estimated that that British motorists each spend on average 30 hours a year stuck in traffic, at a projected cost of over £300 billion to the UK economy over the next 16 years.