www.thenewspaper.com/news/25/2560.asp

UK Speed Cameras to Monitor Every Stretch of Road
UK government proposes speed camera network covering every A-road in the
name of fighting global warming.

The UK Commission for Integrated Transport last year proposed a
nationwide blanket of speed cameras as a means of fighting global
warming. After a series of trials, the Home Office is now set to make
this a reality by approving early next year the SPECS3 "distance over
time speed measuring device" that will make it impossible to drive on
any primary road in Britain without being tracked and subjected to an
instant fine for exceeding the posted speed limit.

"With respect to technology, we are in a period of explosive evolution
in traffic control technology," a commission report entitled Transport
and Climate Change explained. "The Highways Agency already uses several
technologies which are either intended to manage speed, or lend
themselves to that purpose by monitoring speed and sending drivers
messages about their behavior.... Reducing climate impacts of the
motorway network should be a major consideration in the development of
motorway control and communications technology."

The commission estimated that new SPECS3 cameras could monitor every
driver on 31,136 miles of principal rural and urban roads at a cost of
£443,687,656 (US $769,693,415). While the initial investment appears
substantial, the commission noted that "enforcing the 70 MPH limit using
SPECS would pay for itself within around two years." (View sample
deployment map.)

The original SPECS systems, first approved in 1999, photographed
vehicles when they entered a road, communicating the time of entry via a
fiber optic link to a second camera positioned, say, two miles distant.
After the second camera had identified the passing vehicle, the amount
of time it took the car to pass between the two points was converted
into an average speed. The system's limitations included an inability to
ticket cars that changed lanes in between camera locations and a
purchase price of £800,000 (US $1.4 million) to deploy over a distance
of just a mile and a quarter.

SPECS3 solves those limitations. It uses an ISDN connection to transmit
data between any two cameras in the entire network, as well as the
police headquarters, without the need for the expensive dedicated
connection. This configuration slashes deployment cost over the same
distance to just £67,000 (US $116,000). The system can also track
drivers not only as they change lanes, but as they switch between
different roads and highways. Pilot projects are already underway in
Camden, Surrey and Northern Ireland where road trials began in April.
Once established nationwide, records on all vehicle movements will be
stored for five years in a central government Automated Number Plate
Recognition (ANPR) server, allowing police to keep tabs on criminals and
political opponents. Work on the data center in north London began in
2005 and officials expect real-time, nationwide tracking capability to
be available by January.

The original SPECS cameras were found to be quite successful. Between
2000 and 2005, a single camera in Nottinghamshire generated 76,000
tickets worth £4.2 million (US $7.2 million). London's entire SPECS
network generated as many citations in just three weeks. London camera
officials did admit, however, that 5600 tickets were sent to motorists
who were completely innocent.

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