Skip to main content

Scotland’s speed cameras upgrade

Transport Scotland has announced a US$3.8 million package to replace safety cameras across the country. The safety cameras, which detect motorists driving above the speed limit, will be upgraded to digital technology. The new cameras will offer a number of benefits including improved reliability, faster processing of offences and clearer images of offending vehicles. A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: "Road safety is a priority for this government and we are making good progress towards meeting the amb
January 23, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
505 Transport Scotland has announced a US$3.8 million package to replace safety cameras across the country.

The safety cameras, which detect motorists driving above the speed limit, will be upgraded to digital technology.  The new cameras will offer a number of benefits including improved reliability, faster processing of offences and clearer images of offending vehicles.

A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: "Road safety is a priority for this government and we are making good progress towards meeting the ambitious 2020 targets set out in Scotland’s Road Safety Framework.

"Safety cameras have been shown to play an important part in helping to achieve these road casualty reductions and as such, this US$3.8 million investment that will see all wet film safety cameras that detect speeding upgraded to digital technology. This will increase their capacity and in doing so help contribute further towards keeping our roads safe."

There are currently 168 fixed safety camera sites across Scotland. Fifty eight of these are on the trunk road network and the others on local authority roads spread across four safety camera partnership areas: Lothian and Borders (63); North East (29); Strathclyde (63) and Tayside (13).  Many of the existing cameras that are rotated between sites have been in use since the early 1990s and are reaching the end of their serviceable life. The availability of spare parts is diminishing and increased repair times are becoming an increasing problem.

This US$3.8 million investment covers the cost of buying new cameras and upgrading or replacing the existing poles and housings, as well as the associated viewing equipment in each of the four back offices where the information on offences will be administered.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Reduce fatal crashes? Get police on the road
    July 8, 2019
    There are many elements to speed enforcement - but research suggests there is a strong correlation between getting police on the roads and reducing fatal collisions There are a variety of elements which go into successful speed enforcement. The European Union’s blueprint for this (see 10 Rules…) ranges from prioritising roads to offender education courses, and from legislation to data. But research suggests that one of the key factors is visibility – drivers need to see technology in action or police on
  • Machine vision offers new solutions to old problems
    October 28, 2014
    The transportation sector is set to benefit from a far wider range of machine vision technology. While machine vision techniques have been applied to traffic management applications for some years, in some areas there can still be a shortage of knowledge about what the technology can offer transportation professionals. The image processing and interpretation functions of machine vision enables control room staff to be immediately alerted to occurrences requiring attention which, in turn, enables each person
  • Emissions reductions targets to have major impact on transport
    October 28, 2015
    As bold moves aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been introduced in California, David Crawford looks at the ramifications for transportation. California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent dramatic raising of the bar on emissions reduction policy for the state has won him praise from Japan, Australia, Europe and the secretariat of the critical UN conference on climate change being held in Paris in November/December 2015. His April 2015 executive order aimed at bringing emissions to 40% below 1990 lev
  • Michigan fosters real-world testing of workzone ITS
    September 19, 2017
    Turning a ‘problem’ into ‘an opportunity’ is the mantra of just about every business book and Michigan Department of Transportation (MDoT) looks set to achieve that aim in Oakland County, where 29km (18 miles) of the I-75 needs to be reconstructed. Running north-northwest from Detroit, the I-75 carries around 170,000 vehicles per day but, being built in the 1970s, it now requires an additional lane in each direction and upgrading to the latest design and safety standards. Upgrading will be carried out in