Commuters in Newcastle will be able to log on to a network of up to 50 cameras to check for congestion before leaving for work when a new scheme goes live this autumn.
Newcastle City Council said the aim of its Network Camera Management scheme is a reduction of up to two percent in the city's growing road congestion. Motorists will be able to log on to an area of the council's website before starting on their journey to see how bad traffic is on their route.
Visitors to the site will be presented with a map of the city centre and its main approaches. Drivers will be able to click on part of a map relating to their journey to decide on a route based on the amount of traffic.
In its future plans, the council also aims to publish information on the website suggesting alternative routes.
For people without internet access, Newcastle is in talks with local radio stations and is offering to beam live pictures into their studios so they can keep motorists informed with a blow-by-blow account of what's happening.
Pictures being beamed to motorists via the web will rely on broadband technology, but the council has also created a virtual private network based on low powered radio signals to gather the images.
Using a closed radio network eliminates costs of gathering images for the council, leaving the maintenance of the cameras as the only ongoing expense.
Peter Wightman, the council's traffic and transport manager, dreamt up the scheme while stuck in traffic on his way home from work at the Civic Centre, in the busy Haymarket area.
"We're trying to get more information to drivers so they can make informed decisions about their route and avoid the worst of the jams," he said. "The idea is that the cameras become another element in the range of traffic management measures we have or are putting in place."
Newcastle has decided to meet the set-up cost of £250,000 from its Local Transport Plan.
The council said it is looking at allowing users to remotely control the cameras so they can see particular roads. But, according to Wightman, there are many technical issues to overcome, the worst of which is the fact that the images would only load at the rate of the lowest speed of anyone logged on - potentially at 56k through dial-up.
The system is to be backed by e-boards on approaches to the city and so called pinch-points or bottlenecks within it. Average journey times information is also planned to be on the e-boards. The boards will compare average journey times by car and bus in an effort to get drivers to switch to public transport in the city.
They will run alongside other technology based traffic management solutions, including Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras that can measure the time taken to get from A to B.
Newcastle also employs a satellite tracking system that measures traffic speeds to help it hit the government's accident reduction targets. Alongside this, the council now plans to build a database of people who speed regularly and is to ask Northumbria Police to send warning letters to them.
Quelle: KableNET, 15.06.2005
