Westcotec prides itself on being responsive to customer needs. As well as a wide range of signs for different situations, the company also manufactures bespoke solutions to meet individual requirements. Now, many customer applications need connectivity so operators can exchange data with the signs to support their operations.

“There has been a big shift, a lot from the pandemic, where teams that were 15 or 20-strong, are now five or fewer,” explains Olly Samways, sales director at Westcotec. “So, our customers are more reliant on their providers to get them information. It’s a lot more data and more will be coming online.”

Local councils are among Westcotec’s customers, for signs installed around schools where reduced speed limits apply. However, some limits apply only during school hours, so the councils need remote access to change sign settings without physical visits. This helps with efficiency, as Olly explains: “An engineer can’t go around 200 sites with a tablet. They don’t have time, so those signs have been identified to upgrade with SIMs.”

To connect its signs, Westcotec needed a solution as flexible and adaptable as the signs themselves, many of which are portable, to be carried and installed in different locations simply and quickly, and solar powered so councils needn’t dig up roads. Connectivity needed to be similarly cable-free.

It also needed to be secure. Some of Westcotec’s signs work with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) to enforce traffic restrictions. The sensitive vehicle details they transmit must be protected.

Westcotec’s final challenge was to implement connectivity that would be reliable, 24/7 and always-on, because many customers can’t afford their signs to drop out. “They’re safety-critical locations,” says Olly. “If power goes off, or there is an activation, we rely on information getting back to us so we can get an engineer out.”