Average speed enforcement, a huge impact on reducing speed

A guaranteed way to get drivers to slow down and comply with work zone speed limits is to use average speed cameras. Deployed in the UK for over a decade now, they have had a huge impact, not least in achieving around 99 per cent compliance with speed limits. It's not difficult to understand: when someone knows that if they speed through a work zone it is absolutely guaranteed that they will be caught, fined and have points on their licence, only a total fool would. In the UK, SPECS average speed cameras we
January 31, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
UK Roads

A guaranteed way to get drivers to slow down and comply with work zone speed limits is to use average speed cameras.

Deployed in the UK for over a decade now, they have had a huge impact, not least in achieving around 99 per cent compliance with speed limits. It's not difficult to understand: when someone knows that if they speed through a work zone it is absolutely guaranteed that they will be caught, fined and have points on their licence, only a total fool would.

In the UK, SPECS average speed cameras were developed in 1999 by SpeedCheck Services, which recently joined forces with 31 Computer Recognition Systems to become 604 Vysionics. That average speed cameras produce previously unimagined compliance levels with speed limits, is only part of the story: it is well documented how traffic flows more smoothly, congestion is significantly reduced, vehicles can merge and diverge more easily near junctions or ramps.
The system, very familiar to UK drivers, is poised for widespread use around the world. While the recently formed Vysionics is looking outside the UK, major industry players have now entered the market.

Australian-headquartered 112 Redflex, which developed a point-to-point camera system in 2003, says it is now working closely with European governments that are looking to improve road safety over large stretches of road, be it in work zones or on highways. Moreover, Redflex promises that its next-generation point-to-point systems, being launched in the coming months, will see features like non-intrusive technology, newly designed enclosures, and solar power.

 Meanwhile, global enforcement camera player 37 PIPS Technology, part of 38 Federal Signal Corporation, has launched, and won UK Home Office Type approval for, its SpeedSpike average speed enforcement system. PIPS's first product within the average speed enforcement market, it was developed as a cost-effective distance-over-time speed enforcement system, for deployment just about anywhere, and over short or long distances. Up to 1,000 cameras can be linked in any one system.
Enforcement Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision

Related Content

  • Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    September 26, 2019
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
    Read More
  • Felix Scheuter, of Haenni Instruments, on effective highway weight enforcement
    September 26, 2013
    Felix Scheuter, managing director at Haenni Instruments, the renowned Switzerland-based mobile scales manufacturer, gives World Highways his views on how best to ensure effective highway weight enforcement The main danger for any road is its gradual destruction by overloaded heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The more frequently such vehicles use a highway, the faster it is destroyed. Mobile patrol teams using mobile weighing scales are a highly effective way to enforce weight limits aimed at protecting ro
    Read More
  • Report: 'Red-light cameras have reduced crashes’
    February 27, 2013
    From the beginning, the SafeLight and SafeSpeed programs in the Louisiana city of Lafayette have met with controversy and resistance. However, a newly released report shows that the programs, which began in 2007, have reduced crashes at monitored intersections and improved the city's finances. A new contract with Redflex, the company that runs the program, will provide cameras at four new locations and will deploy two more speed vans by 2016. “We believe that SafeLight and SafeSpeed, the so-called red-light
    Read More
  • New technology revolution in urban traffic control?
    January 26, 2012
    Urban traffic control is a well-defined and practised art. Nevertheless, there are technologies here and on the horizon with the potential to revolutionise how we do things. By Gavin Jackman and Andrew Kirkham, TRL, and Jason Barnes. Distributed monitoring and control of urban traffic networks and flows is nothing new. PC-based Urban Traffic Control (UTC) is now well established and operating in many locations around the world. However, it is worth considering the effects of the huge growth in the use of sm
    Read More

Highlighted Content