A completely renovated command center, representing an investment of just under 1 million euros, is intended to help the Flemish Traffic Center in Antwerp better manage the increasing number of vehicles and accidents on the Flemish highway network.

On a network where an average of 64,3 million vehicle-kilometers are traveled per workday, traffic controllers handled more than 13,500 incidents last year and organized 2,150 detours.

With this modernization, the Traffic Control Center appears ready to manage the network, which will become even more complex as the entire Oosterweel link opens in phases.

“Ready for the mobility of tomorrow”

“Our new operations floor brings together expertise, technology, and public service,” says Kathy Vandenmeersschaut, Administrator-General of the Roads and Traffic Agency, of which the center had been a division since 2019.

“Our employees, who work around the clock, are provided with the environment and tools they need here. This ensures they are ready for the mobility of tomorrow.”

The Traffic Control Center, located on Kievitplein behind Antwerp Central Station, opened two new floors this summer and has completely redesigned its control rooms. The goal is to enable faster and more coordinated responses, with a special focus on tunnel safety.

Two control rooms

The Traffic Control Center has 2 control rooms. In the traffic control room about 20 traffic controllers manage dynamic traffic and tunnel operations in collaboration with the highway patrol.

There is also a technical control room staffed by 14 operators who monitor thousands of systems, including traffic lights, street lighting, tunnels, dynamic signage, and road surface conditions.

The network compromises more than 1,700 cameras, 5,000 traffic loops, 200 dynamic message signs, and 1,900 LED signs for lane signaling. The center also serves as the hub for multidisciplinary incident management and coordinates efforts to minimize disruptions on major roads. The real-time traffic data is also available as open data.

Special attention to tunnel safety

Both control rooms have now been completely redesigned. This allows traffic controllers, the federal highway police detachment, and technical operators to exchange information more smoothly and coordinate their actions more effectively. “The time between detecting a problem and taking action is now even shorter,” says spokesperson Peter Bruyninckx.

“During the renovation, special attention was paid to tunnel safety. Thanks to new software, traffic controllers at the tunnel control desks can better monitor traffic in the tunnels.”

In the new control rooms, preparations are also being made to incorporate “dynamic traffic management” and technical monitoring of new roads and tunnels in the future. This involves infrastructure that is still under construction, such as Oosterweel and the new Scheldt Tunnel.

PEREX and Mobiris

In the other Belgian regions, traffic monitoring is handled by PEREX in Wallonia and by Mobiris in Brussels.

Wallonia inaugurated its new PEREX 4.0 center in April 2019 in Daussoulx, near Namur. It combines 24/7 motorway traffic management with infrastructure supervision, telecommunications and waterway management. Federal road police and RTBF Mobilinfo are also represented.

Unlike Flanders, the center also manages the waterways: it houses the real-time control system for locks and dams. That makes PEREX more explicitly multimodal than the Flemish center.

Since September 2021, Brussels Mobility’s traffic center and 6 MIVB/STIB dispatching services have occupied the Brussels Mobility Center, Mobiris. It primarily affects the capital’s tunnels, a network of 13 tunnels spread across 14 technical sites.

Notably, Brussels opted for integration with public transportation; see MIVB/STIB. Mobiris has 8 control desks, plus a crisis-management room. It can remotely close tunnels and coordinate with police and emergency services.

And whereas Mobiris manages the Brussels regional road network, the Flemish center oversees sections of the Brussels ring that are administered by Flanders.

What about the Netherlands, Germany and France?

Things work differently in neighboring countries. The Netherlands, for example, has a two-tiered structure. The Netherlands Traffic Center collaborates with 5 regional traffic control centers, located in Helmond, Rhoon, Velsen-Zuid, Wolfheze and Utrecht, and they are coordinated by Rijkswaterstaat, the national traffic center in Utrecht.

During peak traffic times, the regional control centers open the rush-hour lanes, set up detours, and direct the road inspectors. The national center compiles traffic information and maintains an overview of the situation.

In Germany, everything has been centralized since 2021: Autobahn GmbH des Bundes operates a network of 9 traffic centers. The national coordinating facility in Frankfurt acts as the master centre.

Germany particularly emphasizes corridor management: traffic can be managed across large motorway corridors spanning several metropolitan regions. Coordinated diversions and information systems are intended to prevent one disruption from spreading across the wider network.

France differs structurally and is the most fragmented of the countries we compared. Traffic management is divided between public road authorities and private motorway concessionaires, each with its own control center.

Surveillance cameras, counting stations and roadside sensors feed motorway control rooms. These issue alerts and manage variable-message signs, with information also relayed through motorway radio and information services.

In recent years, the operations of traffic control centers have been increasingly shaped by the integration of software and AI. In general, this has led to less manual monitoring and more alarm management, although decisions about detours and other measures remain the traffic controller’s responsibility.