Skip to main content

SDR a vital tool in assessing speed concerns

UK company Traffic Technology has supplied Surrey County Council with its SDR (speed detection radar) above ground vehicle classifier as part of the Drive Smart campaign, a partnership initiative involving Surrey County Council and Surrey Police that targets anti-social driving. Speeding was highlighted as the issue of greatest concern to local residents so all eleven boroughs or districts in Surrey have been supplied with at least two SDRs.
March 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
UK company 561 Traffic Technology has supplied 4241 Surrey County Council with its SDR (speed detection radar) above ground vehicle classifier as part of the Drive Smart campaign, a partnership initiative involving Surrey County Council and Surrey Police that targets anti-social driving. Speeding was highlighted as the issue of greatest concern to local residents so all eleven boroughs or districts in Surrey have been supplied with at least two SDRs.

“The SDR is used as a vital tool to either prove or disprove a concern of speed,” said Michael Pritchard, casualty reduction officer for Spelthorne Borough. “Not only will it reveal if there is a speeding issue, but the data can be studied to discover the exact problem times, thus saving many hours at the side of the road and wasting time enforcing speed when there is merely a perceived problem.”

The Traffic Technology SDR uses the latest radar technology to accurately detect each vehicle passing the invisible sensor zone, and provides accurate count, classification and speed data for each direction of a bi-directional single carriageway. All the SDR units used by the county council have been upgraded with the latest Newcomm software which enables data to be downloaded via Bluetooth or GPRS to the online WebReporter software and output in a range of formats to suit their needs.

Data from the SDRs is shared with the council, which maintains a speed management plan for each area, and contains SDR data, both historic and current, for each road on the plan. These include roads where there is a history of fatal and serious injury accidents, roads where there are proven speed issues and roads where there is a pattern of damage only collisions. The data forms a valuable part of the plan especially when enforcement strategies are planned and permanent engineering measures are being considered.

“The SDR was designed to meet the need for accurate and reliable non-intrusive traffic monitoring,” says Richard Toomey, managing director of Traffic Technology. “As it needs no in road sensors, it is quick and easy to deploy for temporary speed monitoring applications.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Leeds City Council expands bus lane enforcement system
    November 17, 2015
    Leeds City Council is expanding the reach of its CCTV enforcement network to a further six sites as a direct result of the improvements that the Videalert-based system has delivered over the last four years. The council will now be enforcing bus lane contraventions at thirty sites throughout the city and expects to achieve further reductions in the number of offences committed and continue to meet its strategy of faster journey times for public transport users. The Videalert system was originally in
  • Police admit to hiding speed cameras in tractors
    October 1, 2015
    Humberside Police has admitted to hiding cameras in farm vehicles in a bid to catch speeding bikers on a high casualty rural road in East Yorkshire, despite advice from the Government that ‘vehicles from which mobile speed cameras can be deployed should be liveried and clearly identifiable as an enforcement vehicle’. Humberside Police admitted go the Daily Mail it had employed the new tactics as part of an ongoing aim to reduce the number of motorcyclists killed or seriously injured on the B1253 in East
  • Want intelligent transit? Then share data
    March 2, 2022
    How will the US deploy intelligent transit networks that enable connected vehicles? Data sharing is crucial if urban mobility users are to benefit, explains Timothy Menard of Lyt
  • Tesla crash in China puts autonomous cars in the spotlight again
    August 11, 2016
    Tesla is investigating the crash in Beijing, China last week, when a Tesla Model S in autopilot mode hit the side of a parked car. According to Reuters, Tesla said it had reviewed data to confirm the car was in autopilot mode, a system that takes control of steering and braking in certain conditions. Tesla also said it was the driver's responsibility to maintain control of the vehicle. In this case, it said, the driver's hands were not detected on the steering wheel. "The driver of the Tesla, whose h