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23-01-2009

Northumberland chooses Trimble Technology for Road Markings and Signs Survey 

Following the implementation of the Traffic Management Act 2004 in April last year, Northumberland County Council is ensuring that it is perfectly placed to introduce Civil Parking Enforcement by reviewing all its existing Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) with the help of a new Trimble R8 Rover used in conjunction with Trimble's VRS Now service. 

Using the R8 in Warkworth

Before testing the system, the Council's Traffic Safety Team looked at various ways of carrying out the review and consulted with a number of different Local Highway Authorities.   

Owing to the legal requirements and interpretation issues of the order, they decided to use a high accuracy GPS to collect the site information, which could then be easily transferred to their corporate ESRI GIS. Using GPS at this stage would also benefit the Council's eventual move to ‘map based' orders. 

Collected info and attribute information on GIS

Attribute database form

Already familiar with Trimble technology and KOREC's service and support, Northumberland County Council's Traffic Safety Team tested a Trimble R8 with VRS Now to ensure that the system met the main criteria they were looking for - high accuracy, software flexibility, ease of use for the surveyor, equally suitable for an engineer (so that preloaded data on the controller could be taken on site and orders updated following resurfacing etc.), straightforward downloading and ability to validate collected data. 

Once collected, the surveyor downloads the data and makes his initial edits the same day as the survey. The data is then loaded into Northumberland's GIS using ESRI's Arcview and checked again. 

GPS only satellite visibility


GNSS satellite visibility

The performance of the Trimble R8 VRS system will be further enhanced when the Trimble VRS Now service extends beyond its two current GNSS areas in the South East and Scotland and becomes fully GNSS enabled across the whole UK. 

VRS now Service to extend
As the Ordnance Survey roll out new GNSS CORS receivers Trimble VRS Now will offer many more satellites in view as shown in the sky plots below. The Surveyors and Engineers of Northumberland County Council will then be able to work with even more ease in built up areas and other places with poor sky visibility, improving productivity and maximising their investment. 

Internet: http://www.korecgroup.com/