Bath and North East Somerset Council (BANES) is extending its CCTV enforcement by installing more cameras for its approved class C clean air zone (CAZ). That will give exemptions to private cars but charge higher-polluting buses, coaches, HGVs, LGVs/vans, private hire vehicles and taxis. Videalert was awarded the contract to integrate with the council’s hosted digital video platform which is already being used to enforce such restrictions as bus lanes, bus gates and permit parking.
B&NES Council was one of 28 councils directed by the UK Government to plan to urgently reduce high levels of nitrogen dioxide (caused by vehicle emissions) to within EU and national limits by 2021 at the latest. The authority had originally proposed a Class D CAZ, charging all higher emission vehicles, including cars, to drive in the city centre. However, after a public consultation in December – which brought an unprecedented 8,421 responses – a class C option with more traffic management, was agreed.
Chris Major, group manager for Transport and Parking at BANES says: “The new charging class C CAZ will achieve compliance by 2021 apart from a single exceedance caused by localised traffic issues. We believe this will be resolved by installing traffic signals at two junctions.”
Videalert will be installing HD ANPR cameras to enforce the new CAZ scheme at key road junctions across the designated boundary. The hosted Videalert platform will automate the management and enforcement of this new zone, providing real-time identification including vehicle make, model, colour and euro standard rating for pre-filtering and updating the white-list of compliant vehicles, held at the ‘edge’ to minimise transmission costs. Details on non-compliant vehicles will then interface with the central government’s new national clean air zone database for vehicle validation and payment. The system will also provide analytics and impact analysis showing how many non-compliant vehicles entering the zone over time.
Tim Daniels, Sales and Marketing Director at Videalert, added: “The award of this high profile contract confirms Videalert’s ability to handle the evolving requirements of clean air and low emission zones. It also demonstrates how a single video data platform can support multiple applications, enabling councils to address the challenges of improving traffic congestion and air quality simultaneously.”
About Bath’s zone
The CAZ should start at the end of 2020. The daily charge will be £9 for non-compliant taxis, private hire vehicles and light goods vehicles (the minimum standard being euro 6 for diesel and Euro 4 for petrol), and £100 for buses, coaches and HGVs (the minimum standard being euro 6).
Visit www.videalert.com.
