Traffic management is a concern in every city in the world. Pollution and congestion create challenges that can severely affect city residents. Every city handles it differently. Many are banning cars from city centres all together, creating walkable cities that are better for business, tourism and health.
We know that not all councils have the option to completely ban cars or HGVs from their city centres, or may not want to! This doesn’t mean that there aren’t traffic control measures available to support your residents. In fact, there are many available that allow you to improve safety, reduce congestion and create your own walkable city.
How EDS have supported City Centres in the past
We’ve worked with city councils across the UK to better improve the way people travel about their hometowns. This includes Derby and Birmingham as well as towns like Warwick and Walsall. Generally, the solutions we provide fall into two categories: security and traffic management.
Our security expertise was called in to practice when installing Birmingham city centre’s CCTV network. This state-of-the-art network features both CCTV and ANPR cameras, strategically placed by our team to offer maximum visibility while still offering CAPEX savings. This network is monitored from a single control room, and has been supporting Birmingham Police for years.
Our traffic management services are much more varied. Every city centre is different, and many in our home of the midlands feature listed sites that have to be handled very carefully. Directing vehicle and pedestrian traffic around these environments requires a combination of services, but can ultimately lead to a safer, more comfortable and more eco-friendly city. Here’s how we do it.
Why cities need bollards
While closing roads and entirely preventing vehicular access may be the eventual goal of some cities looking to promote walkability, we know it’s not always feasible. Our range of automatic bollards provides a great compromise.
We’re experts in bollards. For city centres we specifically recommend automatic rising bollards, which come in a variety of different sizes, finishes and operations. These bollards automatically rise in as little as 4 seconds, providing a high level of security at short notice.
Installing these bollards means that you can easily limit the times of day when vehicles can access areas of your city. This means that you can improve safety for pedestrians, while ensuring that traffic flows safely and properties can still receive deliveries or maintenance. When lowered, these bollards run completely flush with the floor, meaning no trip hazards for pedestrians, and ensuring minimal environmental impact. We even offer a heritage range that can better match with your architecture.
All of our automatic bollards are crash tested, and can also help to factor in to your city’s threat prevention measures.
Building Management
Controlling entry to the most popular sites in your city centre is a huge part of managing traffic effectively. If vehicles and people can reliably access and leave these sites, then you’ve already cut out a huge amount of potential congestion. This means taking another look at the gates and parking services that support these sites. Once again, we’ve got some reliable and creative recommendations.
The first is ensuring that you have an automated car park barrier presence in place. These allow a safer and more efficient way for vehicles to enter and leave your site. Our barriers can be customised by length, finish and automation to match any environment. These barriers allow you to ensure a consistent level of safety at what could be potentially very valuable spaces, in a way that a staffed presence simply can’t.
Alongside these we can provide height restriction barriers to prevent access to HGVs, or solar parking bay barriers to prevent cars from leaving a car park at night. For a more visual deterrent, why not check our range of road blockers, traffic flow plates or the previously mentioned automatic bollards?
Decorative Gates
Improving traffic management and security doesn’t have to mean sacrificing aesthetic presence. We know that automatic gates can help to improve the flow of traffic to sites that need to be kept secure, but many of these lack the visual impact required in city centres. This is why our range of automatic decorative gates are all designed bespoke. These gates can be customised to match the architecture of your city, and can be based on something as simple as a sketch.
All our products are made in the UK, meaning that not only can we ensure their quality, but we aren’t affected by parts shortages or shipping problems. This ensures that projects stay on time and better align with your budget.
To find out more about the entry solution that’s right for you, why not book a free consultation? To book your site survey, get in touch at 01212 130 130 or email at web@edsuk.com.