A new service to give councillors and local parish communities advance warning of 1.7 million local road works is launched today (Feb 16).

Roadworks Alerts is free to users and provides details of local road works direct to mobile phones or as automated feeds to websites.

It is a new service from the ELGIN roadworks.org website – the most comprehensive roadworks portal in the UK. It publishes up-to-the-minute information about local roadworks on a live map, with the aim of helping to cut traffic jams and co-ordinate works planning among telephone, water and energy Utilities – potentially saving the UK billions of pounds a year.

Councillor Robert Barr OBE, Warrington borough council, commenting on the new service which enables Alerts to be set up by ward and parish, as well as address and postcode, said:

“We need to help our motorists avoid delays due to roadworks. Roadworks Alerts can help avoid the waste of time that congestion causes and will help councillors keep track of the effect of maintenance and repairs on the roads.”

Cambridgeshire county councillor, Shona Johnstone added:

“Councillors are often the first point of contact for the public. Having up-to-the-minute information about local roadworks by Ward will be a huge benefit in ensuring that their constituents are kept informed.”

Enterprising local councils such as Warwickshire are already pushing out local roadworks information to parish level. County Communications Manager Jane Inman said:

“We have 220 parishes – by our syndicating roadworks data through Roadworks Alerts, local citizens get information about roadworks direct from our Streetworks Register, thus encouraging both ourselves and Utilities and their contractors to keep the information up to date.”

ELGIN Chairman Shane O’Neill commented:

“This is an excellent example of local government making critical transport information available.”

“Over 55% of England and Wales is already covered by this service. Better access to data will lead to better coordination of works and will drive efficiencies.”

“And, by making the data available in intelligent format to innovative applications developers, sponsoring local authorities are also helping to drive the nation’s growth strategy by encouraging enterprise.”

For more information, please contact: pr@elgin.org.uk

Notes to editors:

roadworks.org is the largest roadworks database in the UK, developed and supported by ELGIN. It harvests data effectively in real-time from participating local authorities and LondonWorks as well as main trunk route information from the Highways Agency.

Formerly known as www.elgin.gov.uk, it re-launches in March 2012 with a range of new Open Data features and services.

Local Government Chronicle’s David Brownsey-Joyce in his best practice column notes the contribution of local authorities towards data transparency and democratic accountability in the area of local roadworks…

“Keeping the roads moving and services running can be hard enough but when there are continuous roadworks finding ways around them can seem impossible….read on…

Isle of Wight are the latest local authority to join the ELGIN network. And Isle of Wight Radio immediately realised the value and potential of the service by taking an intelligent data feed via ELGIN  of IOW roadworks information.

Commenting on the reasons why they thought ELGIN to be important, Traffic Manager Ian Thornton said:

“We at present only publish a list of roadworks (to be compliant with Traffic Management Act obligation). But users really need to see things on a map – they really get it then. ELGIN is an effective means of our accomplishing our objectives – and much more cost efficient than our trying to develop a map based roadworks system ourselves.”

And Paul Topping, Programme Director of Isle of Wight Radio commented:

“We are delighted to get this real time feed direct from the Streetworks Register via ELGIN. Getting timely and reliable public sector information like this, in intelligent format, helps us swiftly to bring innovative and useful services to citizens.”

ELGIN is the local roadworks portal (www.elgin.gov.uk) which is being re launched in March 2012, with a range of new services and entry points for Local Authorities. For more information, please contact: marketing@elgin.org.uk.

Surrey County Council is the latest Authority to join ELGIN, spurred on by the demands the Olympic Games are making on the County’s Transport & Planning department. Commenting on the move, Williams Bryans of Surrey said:

“The reason we subscribed to ELGIN was that we have part of the Olympic Route Network and a number of Olympic road race events and our Streetworks team wanted something that was a really simple visualisation tool. They have no such mapping tool and front end interface to view roadworks. Also we have a number of strategic diversion routes in case of incidents on the motorway and trunk road network so we need to be able to see roadwork details in relation to these routes, and our elected Members (Councillors) really liked it during an earlier trial of ELGIN.”

ELGIN, the local roadworks portal, re-launches in March 2012 with a new Google maps user interface, a free entry level for new subscribers, and a host of new products and features. It will include the Olympic stopover routes as well as a brand new Councillor Ward Alert feature.

For more details please contact marketing@elgin.org.uk 

Keith Davenport, Warwickshire County Council Traffic Manager and Chair of ELGIN’s National User Group comments on the new ELGIN management:

“I have been hugely impressed by the ambition of the new management of ELGIN – and their commitment to maintaining a free to view national portal and the governance regime they have provided for the users. Delivering quality and real time data from a position of neutral authority is what distinguishes the ELGIN proposition. It is we believe a critical part of the national roadworks infrastructure.

ELGIN’s plans for the next few months excite me in their ambition and the potential they have to accelerate the availability of roadworks information and the practical implementation of efficiency and communications strategies. ELGIN  delivers on the Prime Minister’s pledge to open up  Streetworks data in 2012 but it does so in a controlled and timely fashion and on a potentially integrated national basis.
I urge all those in the traffic management space to look again at the new propositions which ELGIN will be bringing to the Market over the next few months”

For further information on ELGIN’s change of ownership, please contact press@elgin.org.uk

ELGIN the local roadworks portal acquired by new company

The local roadworks portal, www.elgin.gov.uk, has been acquired by Roadworks Information Limited from Jacobs.

This is a new company established specifically to realize the Government’s vision of opening up local transport data by December 2012 (see Prime Minister statement 7^th July and the Chancellor’s Autumn statement this week.)

ELGIN will be the trading name of the new company which is dedicated to preserving the free to view national roadworks portal and extending its range of Open Data and added value services.

ELGIN will soon be launching some major new services and features which will further support the Big Society programme of the present Government and announcing a series of major national partnerships designed to ensure that local roadworks information is distributed in real-time throughout the networked economy.

Commenting on the acquisition, Keith Davenport, Chairman of the ELGIN National Users Group and Traffic Manager for Warwickshire said:

 “ELGIN’s plans for the next few months excite me in their ambition and the potential they have to accelerate the availability of roadworks information and the practical implementation of efficiency and communications strategies.

ELGIN delivers on the Prime Minister’s pledge to open up Streetworks data in 2012 but it does so in a controlled and real-time fashion and potentially on an integrated national basis.”

For further information, please go contact us directly at mailto:press@elgin.org.uk.

Note: ELGIN is the nationwide local roadworks portal at www.elgin.gov.uk – it harvests real-time data from over 80 Local Authorities in England and Wales and shares data with public sector bodies such as the Highways Agency and Londonworks.  It is the largest roadworks repository in the UK – publishing 1.7 million works per year

George Osborne outlined the Government’s objectives for Open data in the Chancellor’s Autumn statement yesterday. In this he specified local roadworks information as being of particular significance to empowering the citizen and growing industry. He specified a date of December 2012 for this information to be fully available.

ELGIN members within Local Authorities are fully compliant with the Chancellor’s – and indeed the Prime Minister’s  (see Prime Minister statement 7^th July) – aspirations in this respect. Real-time data is served up to the public via the ELGIN  free Roadworks Portal and API (intelligent data) services are available to industry.

That means that 55% of this particular Open Data objective is already achieved – the percentage of coverage of England & Wales which ELGIN’s members represent!