More tech jobs for York

Bosch subsidiary, ETAS Ltd, has reached an agreement with the UK Government to significantly expand the activities of the embedded software centre of excellence in York.

ETAS Ltd, the UK arm of the global software engineering company specialising in solutions to drive the development of embedded systems for the automotive industry, will make a significant investment to expand the centre of excellence. This move represents a vote of confidence in the current climate for the automotive sector.

The newly expanded centre will develop the middleware that will power future generations of advanced autonomous and highly automated driving to be delivered at scale for mass production and allow the world to realise the ambition of accident-free driving. It will also help deliver on the Government’s net zero and levelling up ambitions by securing highly skilled technology jobs in the North of England.

ETAS Ltd has doubled in size in the last five years and today’s announcement will help to further strengthen the automotive cluster in the region.

The current York location has been part of ETAS Ltd since 2003 and is currently responsible for the development of real-time operating systems and basic software for the automotive industry. To date more than 1 billion copies of the ETAS York operating system have been deployed and are driving on the roads globally.

The council has been leading the way with its Smart Transport initiatives since 2018 with the Eboracum Research Project. Traffic signal plans where automatically updated using live on-board vehicle journey times and the findings where warmly received by the transport industry.

The work continues with the Smart Transport Evolution Programme which began in September 2019 and has so far welcomed a real-time city-wide traffic model which uses many live data feeds to forecast 5-60 minutes ahead and produce alerts for traffic control operatives or drivers.

The programme will shortly be delivering Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory, a service that sends real-time and future traffic signals conditions into smart phones and cars and advice of the most efficient speed to travel safely to get through on green.

All this has been made possible by upgrades to the City’s smart infrastructure and puts York in a great place for the adoption of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles.

York named as future technology hub

Compiled by job search engine ‘Joblift’, the list includes cities with populations under 200,000 that have both high numbers of tech jobs and a high percentage of tech jobs compared to the wider market place.

Cities also scored extra points for having a university which is listed in the top 500 universities worldwide for Engineering and Technology degrees.
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Cars set to chat to each other on Holgate Road

York has been selected by the government’s Department for Transport (DfT) to trial new technology that could revolutionise the way we manage traffic flow and digital technology in vehicles in England.

The DfT announced today that City of York Council (CYC) was successfully awarded a share of £2million funding from the Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems grant (CITS) to lead on this special project.

The £300k funding will be used to gather research, intelligence and data in York over a two year period from April.

The aim of the trial is to demonstrate that the new technology will improve traffic flow, congestion, road safety and online connectivity.

The trial in York will focus on the A59 corridor from the Park & Ride site to Holgate Bridge. It will start by using location data collected from vehicles monitored by company INRIX Ltd, which monitors traffic flow across Europe, and are one of the project’s partners to trial better phasing of traffic signals.

In later stages, parts of CYC’s fleet and other vehicles will be fitted with communications to allow them to ‘speak’ to traffic signals along the A59. The trial will also provide the commercial partners in the project from across the country with the opportunity to showcase their products here in York.
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York to get Ultra-Fast Broadband

The news that Sky/TalkTalk are to launch an ultrafast broadband service in the City, possibly as early as next year, is welcome.

The high speeds on offer will be a boon to businesses in the City particularly those in the technology reliant sectors.

It may also provide a boost for “home workers”.

The City has many broadband providers but the domestic market is dominated by the BT network and Virgin.

Virgin in particular provides a high speed service – shortly to increase to 150 mps in some areas – which most leisure/domestic users will find adequate. It comes at a price though.

Competition is generally good for the consumer.

There may, however, be some downsides.

Unless the new network provider – CityFibre – can utilise existing utility ducts, we could be in for another period of damaged footpaths. NTL (Virgins predecessor) didn’t win many friends as it ploughed up the City’s streets nearly 20 years ago.

A technique called “micro trenching” will apparently be used (details here)

And pricing will be important. Commercial users will take a hardnosed approach.

Residents living in the suburbs and villages around York may, however, find that the market simply couldn’t fund the new infrastructure at this point in time.

We will see.

In the meantime the Council Leadership is promising “citywide” coverage.

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Top Techies Come to York

York is to to welcome highly regarded technology speakers who will share their knowledge with York firms over a free business lunch on Thursday 5 September.

To register your attendance visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7239201647.

The event will see Jonathan Mitchener and Nick Bassett speak to York firms about their experiences with The Technology Strategy Board.

The Government backed Technology Strategy Board drives high-impact investments in innovation projects and businesses across the UK, with a headline budget of £500m a year.
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