Skip to main content

UK council to upgrade speed cameras

Derbyshire County Council is to upgrade speed cameras across the county to accommodate digital technology, at a cost of US$1.6 million. The council’s seventy speed cameras currently use wet film technology. It is believed that only twelve of these actually have film in them and that they are changed on a rolling basis. The new digital network will see all seventy sites being brought into operation at once.
September 23, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Derbyshire County Council is to upgrade speed cameras across the county to accommodate digital technology, at a cost of US$1.6 million.

The council’s seventy speed cameras currently use wet film technology.  It is believed that only twelve of these actually have film in them and that they are changed on a rolling basis. The new digital network will see all seventy sites being brought into operation at once.

A spokesman for Derbyshire road safety partnership said: “We keep a close eye on the areas where people are getting killed or hurt and we move those cameras to the sites where they are needed most at any particular time.

“We’ve decided to make the switch because we hope it will allow us to make savings in the long term. “As more areas make the switch, it’s going to get harder and more expensive to get replacement parts and servicing for those with film-based systems.”

The spokesman added: “The digital system means that staff who view the photo evidence to decide whether or not a penalty notice should be issued will be able to download images from a camera while still in their office instead of travelling to the site to collect film for processing as they do currently.”

Speed cameras have been in operation across Derbyshire since 1994. Since then the number of people killed or seriously injured has fallen by 40 per cent on routes where cameras are in use.

Related Content

  • Columbia brings the noise to VRUs
    May 7, 2020
    ‘Twalking’ – the practice of staring at a smartphone screen while walking – may be a matter for wry amusement for the non-addicted, but is potentially hazardous to the phone users. A US research project may have found a solution, finds Alan Dron
  • US enforcement regulation to deliver clearer guidelines?
    February 2, 2012
    Jim Tuton of American Traffic Solutions looks at the evolution of automated enforcement in North America "Technological regulation will become more sophisticated at the federal level, giving states clearer guidelines" Jim Tuton In just 20 years, photo enforcement in North America has grown from a single speed camera in a small town in Arizona to thousands of photo traffic enforcement cameras which are now operating in 350 communities spread across 27 states and three Canadian provinces. Most of these p
  • Dutch survey shows drivers are in favour of road user charging
    January 16, 2012
    'Keep it simple, stupid' is an oft-forgotten axiom but in terms of road user charging it is entirely appropriate. So says the ANWB's Ferry Smith. A couple of decades ago, it might have been largely true that the technology aspects of advanced road infrastructure were the main obstacles to deployment. However, 20 years or more of development have led to a situation where such 'obstacles' are often no more than a political fig-leaf. Area-wide Road User Charging (RUC) is a case in point; speak candidly to syst
  • What's Next for Aimsun?
    October 4, 2023
    Aimsun is switching strategy from being a pure software firm to one that is focused on outcomes. The company’s CEO Alexandre Torday talks to Adam Hill and explains why