API Documentation

Live UK road incident data and historical police collision records, over a REST API returning JSON.

Overview

There are two distinct products here, and most integrations only need one.

Base URL  https://www.uktrafficupdates.uk/api/data-api.php

Authentication

Pass your key as a query parameter or an HTTP header. Every request needs one.

# Query parameter
GET /api/data-api.php?key=uktu_signage_xxxx&action=ping

# HTTP header
GET /api/data-api.php?action=ping
X-API-Key: uktu_signage_xxxx

Check your key first

action=ping confirms the key works and returns a live snapshot of current conditions — active counts per feed and the busiest roads at that moment. Useful as a first call because it shows the real scale of the data before you write any template code.

{
  "status": "ok",
  "organisation": "Example Media Ltd",
  "tier": "signage",
  "timestamp": "2026-08-16T06:13:02+01:00",
  "live_now": {
    "active_total": 81,
    "feeds": {
      "motorway": { "source": "nh",  "active": 11,
                    "covers": "Motorways and trunk A-roads in England (National Highways)" },
      "london":   { "source": "tfl", "active": 70,
                    "covers": "London road network (Transport for London)" }
    },
    "busiest_roads": [
      { "road": "M27", "active": 3 },
      { "road": "M25", "active": 2 }
    ],
    "data_updated": "2026-08-16T06:12:01+01:00",
    "stale": false,
    "try_these": [
      "?key=YOUR_KEY&action=live&feed=motorway",
      "?key=YOUR_KEY&action=live&feed=london"
    ]
  }
}

live_now is always genuine current data. It is never sample or placeholder content. If the roads are clear it will say so.

Rate limits

Every response carries meta.calls_remaining_hour and meta.calls_remaining_day. Signage tiers are priced per estate, not per screen.

Errors

Errors return status: "error" with a message. Check the HTTP status code as well as the body.

Live traffic — two feeds, pick one

Parameters

Query patterns

# Corridor — everything on the M6
?key=xxx&action=live&feed=motorway&road=M6

# Corridor + proximity — M6, five closest to this screen first
?key=xxx&action=live&feed=motorway&road=M6&lat=52.31&lng=-1.11&nearest=5

# Nearest — always returns something, however far
?key=xxx&action=live&feed=london&lat=51.51&lng=-0.13&nearest=3

# Radius — strict, may return nothing
?key=xxx&action=live&feed=london&lat=51.51&lng=-0.13&radius_miles=5

Quiet periods are normal

UK roads are frequently clear. On a quiet afternoon there may be fewer than twenty active motorway incidents nationally, and a strict radius query will legitimately return "count": 0 for long stretches, particularly overnight and at weekends.

This is accurate data, not a fault. A well-built template can present it positively — “No incidents reported on the M6 nearby” is useful to a driver. If a screen must always carry content, use nearest rather than radius: it returns the closest incidents whatever the distance, with distance_miles attached, so your template decides what is worth showing.

Response fields

{
  "status": "ok",
  "count": 2,
  "cached_at": "2026-08-16T06:13:02+01:00",
  "data_updated_at": "2026-08-16T06:12:01+01:00",
  "stale": false,
  "stale_reason": null,
  "source_counts": { "nh": 11, "tfl": 70 },
  "filters": { "feed": "motorway", "source": "nh", "road": "M6" },
  "incidents": [
    {
      "id": 566245,
      "ref": "dp_b6f791f8560fe87a0308",
      "source": "nh",
      "road": "M6",
      "category": "Road Or Carriageway Or Lane Management",
      "title": "M6 southbound within J18",
      "description": "M6 southbound within J18. Lane closures. Currently active.",
      "location": "M6 southbound within J18",
      "lanes_closed": "1 of 3 lanes closed",
      "contraflow": false,
      "delay_mins": null,
      "expected_clear": null,
      "lat": 53.201946,
      "lng": -2.387504,
      "started": "2026-08-16T05:24:01+01:00",
      "updated": "2026-08-16T05:30:01+01:00",
      "distance_miles": 4.2,
      "attribution": "Powered by National Highways' Transport Data Feeds"
    }
  ],
  "attribution": "Powered by National Highways' Transport Data Feeds. This credit must appear wherever the data is displayed."
}

Incident fields

Fields with no value are returned empty or null rather than omitted, so the object shape is identical across every incident and both feeds.

There is deliberately no severity field

The live feeds do not publish a severity grade. Source data grades inconsistently — Transport for London mark almost everything “minimal” regardless of real impact — and a severity label that is wrong is worse than none. A screen that says “minor” beside a full closure teaches drivers to ignore the next one.

The purpose is to warn that something is there. The road, the junction range, the lane detail and the delay give a driver what they need to judge it themselves. Historical collision records do carry severity, because that is police-recorded fact rather than a live estimate.

Behaviour & limits

Units

Distances are returned in both miles and metres on every incident. For the search radius you may pass radius_miles or radius; miles wins if both are supplied. The filters block echoes back what was actually applied.

Timestamps

All timestamps are ISO 8601 with an explicit UTC offset, for example 2026-08-16T06:13:02+01:00. The offset moves between +01:00 and +00:00 across the year — parse the offset rather than assuming one.

• cached_at — when the cache was last written
• data_updated_at — when the underlying data last changed. Use this for any freshness indicator.

ETag and 304 Not Modified

Every live response carries an ETag scoped to your exact query. Send it back as If-None-Match and you will receive 304 with an empty body when nothing has changed. At scale this is the difference between transferring a full payload on every poll and transferring almost nothing.

# First request
GET ?key=xxx&action=live&feed=motorway&road=M6
→ 200 OK
→ ETag: "a1b2c3d4e5"

# Subsequent request
GET ?key=xxx&action=live&feed=motorway&road=M6
If-None-Match: "a1b2c3d4e5"
→ 304 Not Modified   (empty body — reuse your cached copy)

How often to poll

The cache regenerates every five minutes, so polling faster than that returns 304 and gains nothing but call count. 60 to 120 seconds is the sensible band — tight enough to pick up a change promptly, without burning your allowance on empty responses.

If your player architecture pulls centrally — a CMS fetching once per road or region and distributing to players — volumes are dramatically lower and a Professional tier may be sufficient. Tell us how your estate fetches and we will size it with you rather than guessing.

Stale data detection

If the upstream feed stops updating for more than 90 minutes, the response sets stale to true with a reason. Your template must check this and hide the widget or clearly label the data, rather than presenting stale incidents as current.

{
  "stale": true,
  "stale_reason": "NTIS data has not updated in 127 minutes. The feed may have stopped."
}

Sensitive content

Incident text is filtered before it reaches this API. Incidents involving people in distress, fatalities or police operations are suppressed and returned only as “Police incident”, with the free-text detail removed. Structural detail — road, junction, lane counts — is retained, since it carries no sensitive information and a driver still needs it.

Filtering is applied when the cache is generated, so the raw text never enters an API response. You must not attempt to circumvent or supplement it.

Attribution — required

Every response includes an attribution field, both at the top level and on each incident. It reflects the sources actually present in that response.

This credit must appear wherever the data is displayed — on every screen, not only on your own site. It is a condition of our upstream licences and is not negotiable. National Highways' branding guidelines apply to their credit; ask us for a copy.

Historical collision records

A separate dataset from the live feeds: 551,000 police-recorded collisions from the Department for Transport's STATS19 release, with linked vehicle and casualty records. Published annually, typically in September.

These records do carry severity — fatal, serious, slight — because it is police-recorded fact.

collision — one record in full

Returns the collision with every linked vehicle and casualty. ref is the accident index, obtained from road or lookup.

road — collisions on a named road

stats — aggregates for a road

Totals, severity split, year-by-year trend and weather breakdown.

blackspot — danger scoring

Danger score, risk level and the worst junctions on that road.

lookup — collisions near a point

Deliberately tighter than the live endpoint — this is junction-level historical search, and a wide radius would return thousands of rows.

Data sources

National Highways data is supplied under the NH Transport Data Feeds Licence. STATS19 is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. TfL data is published under TfL's open data terms.

Pricing

Signage and enterprise — priced by estate

Signage licensing is priced by the size of your estate rather than by call volume, because what you are buying is coverage across your sites. One licence covers every screen in the band.

A one-off integration fee of £2,500 applies to signage and enterprise agreements, covering template consultation and developer support during build.

Billed monthly in arrears, 30-day terms. Multi-year commitments attract a discount — ask. Historical collision reports and bespoke road safety analysis are quoted separately.

Your obligations

Terms

Use of this API is subject to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

The data originates from third-party government sources under licences that may be modified, suspended or terminated by those providers at any time and without cause. We cannot guarantee uninterrupted supply. Data is provided “as is” without warranty as to accuracy, completeness or timeliness, and must not be relied upon for safety-critical decisions. Our total liability is capped at the fees paid in the preceding twelve months. Digital signage and public display use requires a separate commercial agreement — contact us.