Siemens ITS has supplied and installed its 1,000th traffic enforcement camera in the UK this year, as part of Nottingham’s Go Ultra Low City scheme that aims to boost the take-up of Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVs) across the region.
The milestone deployment of the Siemens LaneWatch civil enforcement camera will monitor traffic on the newly-constructed A612 Daleside Road bus lane, the first in the UK to allow exemptions for ULEVs.
Nottingham is growing, and Daleside Road is a major route into the city with high volumes of commuter and other traffic passing along it every day, contributing to harmful levels of emissions. Being at the forefront of initiatives aiming to tackle air pollution through smart green transportation, Nottingham already operates biogas and electric buses along Daleside Road and LaneWatch cameras on bus lanes. In addition to reducing the number of vehicles and improving bus journey times, and providing better facilities for cyclists and pedestrians, the scheme is part of wider improvements to better connect the east and the west of the city, and to link up employment and housing to support Nottingham’s growth.
Designed specifically to operate automatically in an unattended capacity, Siemens’s CCTV-based LaneWatch Mk3HD cameras form part of the company’s civil enforcement product portfolio. The new 1.4 mile-long (1.9km) bus lane on Daleside Road is equipped with 10 enforcement cameras to monitor and enforce traffic using the bus lane.
The cameras are wireless and can be relocated to other priority enforcement sites in the city if the need arises. Each LaneWatch camera monitors a section of the bus lane and makes use of ALPR (automatic license plate recognition) technology to detect vehicles. Onboard software then reads and checks the number plate of the vehicle against a DVLA (driver and vehicle licensing agency) vehicle emissions database in real time to establish if it qualifies as an ULEV.
Vehicles that do not qualify are recorded and the evidence is later used to issue a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). The LaneWatch cameras can also monitor and enforce additional contraventions, including more complex moving traffic violations such as banned turns, ‘no entries’, going the wrong way in a one-way street, and illegal U-turns.
“There are more than 12 miles of bus lanes in Nottingham, designed to give public transport passengers fast, reliable services,” explained Sally Longford, Nottingham City Council’s portfolio holder for energy and environment. “We already work with Siemens to maintain our existing enforcement cameras, and we knew we could rely on them for our newest bus lane, which allows ULEV drivers too.”
Mark Lethbridge, the council’s technical expert for highway systems, added, “Our relationship with Siemens for unmanned camera enforcement goes back more than 10 years. Over this time, we have come to appreciate the quality and durability of all their products, from cameras to review station software. The project support we receive from Siemens ensures we have the confidence to deliver our schemes, not only within timescales, but more importantly, within budget.”
