Lancashire County Council has switched to Videalert systems for the enforcement of bus lanes throughout the county. The decision to standardise on Videalert’s hosted CCTV enforcement platform was taken to provide the council with the ability to manage multiple contravention types using a single platform. Marston Holdings group companies Videalert and NSL were selected to deliver the new enforcement solution.
Peter Bell, parking and regulation manager at Lancashire County Council, said: “The single platform approach coupled with significant uptime demands meant our old cameras were seriously impacting on the effectiveness of our bus lane and ongoing parking enforcement strategy. Bus lanes improve travel times for people using public transport, and the Videalert system enables us to meet our compliance objectives by delivering a consistently higher level of performance, as well as providing the highest availability. The platform also delivers better value as future-proofing is built-in and additional camera assets and enforcement applications can be cost effectively added as required.”
The council has initially installed Videalert bus lane cameras in 15 locations in Preston, Burnley and Lancaster. The ONVIF-compliant, digital HD cameras went ‘live’ before the end of December 2019 and capture quality images to minimise discard-rates, increase productivity and help reduce the number of appeals.
County Councillor Keith Iddon, cabinet member for highways and transport, commented: “The bus lanes are there to give priority for buses, and enforcing them helps to ensure that everyone follows the rules, and the system works as it should. I hope that we don’t make a penny from penalty notices once the cameras are working, as it will mean that people aren’t abusing the bus lanes.”
The council already has a strategy to roll out the new system to the other locations. It is also considering other applications, including red routes and Mobile Enforcement Vehicles, to add to Videalert’s digital video platform, which can simultaneously support multiple traffic management and enforcement applications, such as clean air and low emission zones using the same infrastructure.
Captured evidence packs are stored on Videalert’s hosted digital video platform where they can be accessed and reviewed securely over the internet. Validated evidence packs are sent to the council’s back office system to issue penalty charge notices (PCN). Videalert’s hosted platform makes it a simple process to deploy enforcement as it does not require the installation of any IT at the council’s offices.
