Newham Council have deployed 71 Small Blue cameras and associated equipment at several locations on their highway network to monitor:-
- bus lanes,
- school streets,
- prohibited areas for vehicles,
- bus gates,
- banned turns,
- yellow box junctions
The London Borough of Newham is located on the boundary of inner and outer East London.
In addition to achieving compliance on the road network, they wanted to use innovative technology to meet their air quality objectives. The cameras were sourced through a joint procurement exercise with TES’ channel partner, Openview Security Solutions Limited. TES Small Blue cameras have been rolled out to a variety of locations around Newham. Each TES Small Blue camera uses ANPR technology and 4G connectivity to detect and transfer encrypted evidential packages to back-office systems. Newham Council officers are responsible for reviewing these packages using TES Review Client (notice processing software). The resulting data is securely transmitted to the authority’s third-party provider for PCNs to be issued.
The Review Client allows council officers to create exemption lists for vehicles that are permitted to use the restricted streets. An exemption list can be general such as:-
- buses
- police vehicles
- ambulances
- council vehicles
These exemptions can be used on multiple cameras or it can be specific to a single camera.
The lists are assigned to the relevant cameras and any detected vehicles are checked against the exemption lists, with permitted vehicles being discarded.
Specific Project: Thames Water Scheme (East London)
In July 2021 TES provided 4 Small Blue cameras and associated equipment to Newham Council to facilitate major sewage works by Thames Water in Stratford, East London. These 4 cameras were used to enforce weight restrictions to prevent vehicles over a certain weight using certain routes in the area whilst the works were ongoing. This type of monitoring allowed Thames Water to conduct urgent works to strengthen the bridge in the shortest possible time to enable weight restrictions to be lifted whilst the Thames Water project is ongoing. The Thames Water project is expected to take place over 1-2 years.
The cameras can be enforced / not enforced as needed, and can be done with Police Powers.