Jenoptik Traffic Solutions UK is about to install its 100th SPECS average speed camera route system, with the deployment rate having grown rapidly in recent years as highways authorities and the public become more aware of the benefits.
The new scheme will be somewhere in Lancashire, the company said under a framework agreement with the county council that will see Jenoptik cover eight routes.
A Jenoptik SPECS camera on the A9
Jenoptik, previously Vysionics ITS, installed 50 schemes in the first 15 years since it introduced the technology in 2000 and has put in the same number in the last two years.
Geoff Collins, the company’s sales and marketing director, attributes the recent growth to the technology being ‘an idea that has come of age’, with system designers and users now understanding it better.
He told Transport Network that system designers were now trying to achieve a final scheme that delivers everything they want, in terms of casualty reduction, traffic flow and the environment, instead of just deciding to put cameras in a particular location.
Public acceptance of average speed cameras has also improved and tends to do so after schemes are installed, Mr Collins explained. While ‘human nature is to not want to be monitored’, people perceive the benefits, he said. Schemes can improve traffic flow and make people more willing to use roads where they are installed.
Jenoptik has installed cameras on 220km of the A9 in Scotland and has won a new contract for the A90, which will cover 80km.
Mr Collins praised Transport Scotland, which has gone to great lengths to publicise its schemes and their early success in reducing casualties, for its ‘vision’. He said: ‘Transport Scotland have done a brilliant job and present a model for how to do it right.’
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