A phased approach 

In total, the Council had more than 120 assets, including parking counters, RGB signs, matrix signs and parking guidance signs, that needed to be migrated to the new system. 

Understanding the scale of the project, we proposed a phase migration strategy, divided the into four distinct phases, ensuring a smooth transition with minimal disruption to daily operations.

The pilot phase involved integrating an initial nine assets into the MyCity platform, serving as a test project for the Council to get an initial understanding of the platform and its capabilities. The staff learned to use the system for scheduling parking signs and managing real-time data, leading to insights enhancing user experience. 

The subsequent phase one was all about learning from the pilot and adding another 18 assets, boosting the staff's confidence in MyCity and enabling data-driven scheduled user displays. By phase two, the migration expanded to 40 assets, enabling greater control of the signs and car parks which were enabled on the system and demonstrating the growing benefits of the system. The final phase completed the migration of the remaining 55 assets, migrating the final assets from the existing system into a cohesive MyCity network, which now serves as the Council’s full ecosystem in providing real-time data for responsive operations.

From parking guidance to comprehensive urban traffic management

After completing the migration phases, all of the Council’s parking guidance assets are now being monitored and managed through MyCity. by our cloud-based solution which is also capable of urban traffic management functionality. Being a modular system, additional data points and functionalities can be added, such as journey times, floating car data, air quality and more. 

Cambridgeshire County Council is utilising the MyCity Journey Time functionality to visualize and access real-time data reports on average, minimum and maximum journey times throughout the city and surrounding area. Data can be gathered either by detectors or by third-party data providers, without the need of having any extra hardware installed on the streets. It identifies traffic delays on routes using color-coded maps and allows for analysis of historical data. Currently, the Council has got 10 journey time links, covering the most frequented travel routes. This is supported by Floating Car Data to provide a more accurate view of real-life journeys, factoring in exceptions like route deviations, helping cities, like Cambridge, improve traffic flow on congested routes. 

By collecting journey times and floating car data, MyCity’s strategy manager function gives Cambridgeshire County Council the ability to use data to implement automated traffic management strategies. Based on predefined thresholds, the system can, for instance, automatically send messages to traffic signs to warn road users about congestion in specific areas of the city or advise on parking space availability. For example, if the average travel time from journey link A to journey link B is 10 minutes on a normal day, but the floating car data reports that today it is actually taking a minimum of 15 minutes, the system automatically triggers a message which will be displayed on predefined connected devices with real-time traffic updates, helping to advise drivers in advance.