Road Safety Cameras

Serco has a long pedigree, extending back over twenty years, in supporting the Police and Local Authorities enforcing road traffic regulations.

In 1984, Serco and Gatsometer BV in Holland established a partnership which has since delivered over 5,000 safety camera sites in the UK. This partnership has helped to save 100 lives a year by deterring excessive speed and improving compliance with traffic signals.

Serco also provides a suite of software applications known as  EROS which allow evidential material from all types of safety cameras to be processed, resulting in the issuing of a Notice of Intended Prosecution and, in many cases, a Conditional Offer of a Fixed Penalty. It also allows follow up activity and communications to be managed effectively.

In providing end to end enforcement solutions and by supporting criminal prosecutions, Serco has gained a wealth of experience, in developing solutions which robustly ensure the integrity of the evidential chain. This allows the Home Office Scientific Development Branch to grant Type Approval for the equipments which promotes confidence in the evidence being presented in a Court of Law.

As Road Safety Camera technology moves towards the capture of digital images, Serco has again developed a robust suite of measures to protect evidential material by securing it at the point of capture and ensuring it is delivered to a “back office” environment in an unaltered state. Digital images allow the enforcement process to be streamlined. Evidential material can be transferred from the roadside over a communications link and can be presented securely via a web browser to a suspect, reducing the number of challenges.

Decriminalisation

The Traffic Management Act 2004 allows Local Authorities outside London to assume decriminalised powers in dealing with minor traffic offences.

Serco is bringing its wealth of experience in the criminal domain to the capture and processing of offences covered by decriminalised powers. These offence include many parking offences, bus lane infringement, banned turns and incorrect use of box junctions. Serco will provide technology both at the roadside and in the “back office” and will provide operational services “on street” and at the ticketing office.

Serco’s focus on evidential integrity to support criminal proceedings is now benefiting the decriminalised environment. Evidence capture and processing is robust and secure, ensuring that Local Authorities can have absolute confidence in the evidence of an offence when pursuing offenders.

Serco offers an end to end solution whether the offence capture is attended, as in the case of CCTV, or automatic unattended as in the case of bus lane infringements. 

Serco’s back office solution for the decriminalised enforcement of parking offences, bus lane offences and other similar offences is based on the proven ticketing application currently used by 37 of the UK’s safety camera partnerships. It’s robust processes and intuitive operation ensure the effective management of offence processing.

Road Use Charging

Similar techniques and processes can be used to capture and process evidence in many other applications. The enforcement system expects to be presented with digital images of an offence but is largely independent of the type of offence. An unauthorised vehicle entering a restricted zone for example, will trigger the capture of an evidential image which can be passed over a communications link and then validated and processed in a similar way to the evidential video of a bus lane infringement. The ultimate result is identical in that a Penalty Charge notice is issued.

In a road user charging system a vehicle that has infringed the regulations will cause an evidential image to be captured, communicated and processed in a similar manner.

Consequently, for a Local Authority with decriminalised powers, Serco’s enforcement system will allow many types of offences to be processed. For each offence type, the detection and capture device will vary but the process for handling the resultant evidence remains similar and would be operated in the same back office by the same staff.