YORK has been given nearly £3 million in national funding for cutting edge new traffic light technology.

Under the new project beacons on traffic lights will be "talking" to cars in the city in a bid to reduce congestion.

The city council has won £2.85m funding for a Smarter Travel Evolution Programme (STEP), with the money coming from the local road network strand of the government’s National Productivity Investment Fund.

Cllr Ian Gillies, York's executive member for transport said: “This will make York one of the most advanced cities in the country. Being able to build things like traffic light signalling based on the journeys people really make every day will mean better decisions, less congestion and improved air quality.

“We can’t simply build more roads in the city, so this is a really innovative way to get the city moving as efficiently as possible."

STEP uses York's fast broadband network and cutting edge transport research the government is already funding in the city. Detectors on traffic lights, bollards and other street furniture will track vehicle movements by using anonymous information collected from people using mobile data, and that will then be processed using the most sophisticated real-time traffic data and analysis in the country.

The system will also be able to talk to the new generation of connected and driverless vehicles.

The project will start in April next year and is funded for two years. Council bosses say it will transform the way York's roads are managed - from changes to traffic lights to road and junction improvements.

It will also help the council understand the potential impact of things like new homes and employment sites.