Tyco Integrated Systems solve problem of pedestrian and vehicular conflicts around busy tram and bus lane junctions.

Nottingham City Council was one of the first local authorities to install and operate a fully digital bus lane enforcement system in 2007. Since then the system has gone from strength to strength and has helped reduce bus and tram lane contraventions, improve bus and tram reliability and journey times and subsequently increase the number of people travelling on public transport in the city.

However, it wasn’t until the recent installation of the LaneWatch unattended enforcement cameras and the deployment of the mobile bus lane enforcement vehicle that ongoing road safety risks could be tackled.

Nottingham City Council and Nottingham Express Transit, the operators of the city’s tram network have long been concerned about the amount of vehicular traffic using various tram gates as a short cut especially gates in high population density areas such as Nottingham Trent University, which is used by thousands of students and shoppers every day. The problem of how to reduce the amount of vehicles using the tram gate, whilst still maintaining a speedy and efficient service, was tackled by installing two LaneWatch unattended enforcement cameras, one in each direction, and utilizing Tyco’s brand new innovative mobile bus lane monitoring and enforcement vehicle.

Using a combination of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, digital video recording, Zenco mobile capture software, wireless data transfer interfaces and RAID1 data storage, once video evidence is received in the Traffic Control Room it can be turned into a Penalty Charge Notice and a fine can be issued.

Four months into its tour of duty the new mobile enforcement vehicle, based on a standard Toyota iQ, is already proving its worth according to Caroline Stylianou, Nottingham’s service manager for traffic and safety. “It’s a totally different way of working”, she says. “We have the freedom to deploy wherever we’ve got hotspots, which is so useful”.

With the new mobile enforcement vehicle in action, however, Stylianou says there was an immediate change in drivers’ attitudes. She continued, “This is what we want ultimately. We don’t want to be picking people up for offences in bus lanes – we want a clear, safe route for buses to get through”.

Stylianou has also found additional benefits to using the car, such as traffic network management. She explains that some of Nottingham’s major junctions, for various reasons, are not currently covered by cameras, and subsequently cannot be monitored from the traffic management control room. With the new vehicle, however, pictures from sites that have proved difficult to capture on CCTV can be taken and beamed back live to the traffic management team.

Since the installation and trial of both camera solutions the system has been extended to other parts of the city and after its success, plans are now being drawn up to further extend their reach in the near future.