Transport tech scaleup expands into Northern Ireland to improve road safety and promote active travel

Transport technology scale-up VivaCity is expanding into Northern Ireland in a bid to transform transport infrastructure across the regions.

VivaCity, which is transforming cities into smarter and more efficient places to live and work, is continuing its growth journey locally and into the Republic as a result of increasing demand.

Local towns and cities are on a mission to boost road safety and promote active travel, and to achieve this, they are turning to the London-based firm, who currently work with over 100 local authorities across the UK.

The VivaCity sensors gather highly accurate, anonymous, multimodal road use data on traffic flow, travel patterns and behaviours. In addition to traffic monitoring, VivaCity’s product offering in Ireland includes Near Miss and Smart Signal Control technology for proactive road safety management and network optimisation.

The official launch comes after VivaCity’s recent project with Infrastructure Northern Ireland, which marks the first Smart Signal Control project in the market and will help to prevent future incidents by making crossings safer for vulnerable road users. This is something which is particularly prevalent with Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure who reported a 10% increase in road fatalities compared to 2021. Similarly, in the Republic of Ireland, Dublin saw road deaths rising by 13% in 2022 compared to 2021, with a 100% increase in the number of pedestrians killed. The need for more holistic road safety data has been raised in the Irish Times, with Dublin City Council having a large commitment to active travel.

VivaCity’s near-miss technology will enable local authorities to identify incidents that could have happened but didn’t, and the root cause of dangerous interactions. Combined with speed, tracks and the full smart traffic monitoring suite, this dataset will allow strategic planning and implementation of life-saving schemes and initiatives.

Mark Nicholson, CEO and co-founder at VivaCity, said: “We’re excited to collaborate with Irish authorities and contribute towards solving some of their biggest transport challenges. Ireland shows a strong appetite for sustainable road safety, which is supported with a large active travel fund ready for authorities to ultise. With a clear gap in accurate data insights available to support decision making on the future of Ireland’s roads, we’re looking forward to seeing the positive impact that our technology will have.”

VivaCity will be exhibiting at TRA, Dublin in April 2024.