The traffic centre

The role of the traffic centre is to serve as a central control centre for services on roads or in tunnels. Its largest projects regards the execution of winter services and monitoring of tunnels. The traffic centre also monitor roads with regard to avalanches, landslides, volcanic eruptions, seismic activity, river floods, damages to roads, along with various other undertakings that are meant to promote increased traveller safety.

Thet traffic centre co-ordinate winter services, monitors road conditions, complies with work procedures of winter services, and monitor road closures due to weather, conditions, or natural disasters. Work station managers call on employees or contractors for road monitoring and snow and ice removal, in collaboration with IRCA’s 18 operating units that are scattered across the country.

The tunnels in Hvalfjörður, Norðfjörður, and Dýrafjörður are equipped with a monitoring system and incident cameras, which allow shift leaders to respond quickly in case of dangerous conditions for travellers. The system detects deviations from normal traffic through the tunnels. Deviations occur when drivers stop inside the tunnels, cars catch a fire, something falls off of car or trailer onto the road, and if a cyclist or an animal enters the tunnel, to give a few examples.

The traffic centre handle the closing of tunnels if they need to be used for priority transport, i.e. ambulances or police. There are strict safety requirements for tunnels and monitoring is one of the factors ensuring that IRCA responds quickly if such circumstances occur.

IRCA’s traffic centre are operated in Garðabær and Ísafjörður. The traffic centre employ 22 shift leaders.

IRCA’s traffic service 1777 is responsible for sharing information with travellers on road conditions, weather, travelling conditions, and services in the road system, from morning to night, all year round. The traffic service responds to enquiries through phone or e-mail, publishes notifications on umferdin.is, via text, and e-mail, as well as handling the switchboard service of IRCA. 1777 traffic service works closely with IRCA’s traffic centre in the gathering and dissemination of information to travellers. 1777 is open from 06:30 to 22:00 every day, year round. IRCA’s switchboard services are open on working days from 08:00–16:00.

The role of 1777 traffic service is to provide travellers with the latest information on road conditions and weather, offer guidance and support through phone and via e-mail, provide opinions regarding exemptions to weight limits on roads, and answer questions about Loftbrú.

Service representatives closely monitor weather forecasts and road conditions, receive input from travellers, and share this information with IRCA’s traffic centre and service stations.

The winter is the busiest time at the traffic service. During a busy winter day, 1777 answers up to 3,000 phone calls and issues around 150 notifications that appear on umferdin.is and infortraffic.is.

During summertime, travellers call for assistance when planning trips around the country; gathering information about distance and road conditions on the highlands. People also call with input and comments regarding jobs that may need to be done such as dust binding and road grading, notifying us of potholes or road damage, seeking assistance using Loftbrú, as well as asking about construction that is being carried out, at any given time.

The traffic service is operated in Ísafjörður, with eight employers that are experienced in providing information to the public. The traffic service sends out daily notifications regarding weather and road conditions, road construction and repairs, closures, and weight limits that can affect the use of the road system. The latest notifications can be found in umferdin.is / infotraffic.is