T0647 Close Following

National Highways is committed to reducing injuries resulting from Road Traffic Collisions (RTC).

Early in 2015 Task 352 facilitated initial trials at an off-road facility to identify whether sensor technology could be developed to measure the frequency of - and enforce - close following offences. At the time, four of the six systems showed potential.

Subsequently Task 520 subjected the promising prototype systems to further, and more complex, off-road trials. These additional trials provided the system suppliers with important testing and development time at an off-road facility. Trials were conducted using a greater number of vehicles, various vehicle types (including motorbikes) and more scenarios.

All four prototype systems involved in Task 520 were believed to be capable of supporting the on-road trials to gather data to understand the extent of the close following problem on the network.

SPATS Task 1-022 took the first equipment to a live roadside site and analysed the performance of the systems.