1.6 When the Government announced the Agency's new role in 1998, there were already a number of initiatives underway to improve the motorway telecommunications systems:
■ Development of a business case to upgrade the national telecommunications system between police control offices from outmoded analogue technology to the then current industry standard for digital transmissions.
■ A programme to install, across congested parts of the motorway network, more: message signs, operated from police control offices; motorway incident detection equipment; and automatic signalling equipment. Included within the programme was the installation of new fibre optic cables over parts of the system.
■ Procurement of a new Traffic Control Centre to monitor traffic and to implement strategic responses to both planned and unplanned events. The project required CCTV and data links from each of the 32 police control offices, as well as linking the centre directly to an expanding network of traffic detection equipment.
1.7 In June 1998, the Agency decided to investigate whether it should undertake a single project to install fibre optic cables across the motorway network, rather than continue to rely on ad hoc installation for specific projects. The Agency also wanted to consider what role the private sector could have in such a project. This was the beginning of the project for the National Roads Telecommunications Services (the NRTS).
1.8 The Agency expected that the private sector would be interested in commercial opportunities to use spare capacity in the cable network and to lease land and structures along motorway corridors for mobile phone aerials. It envisaged that the private sector would also be interested in developing and rolling out roadside devices that could communicate directly with passing vehicles.