Portsmouth City Council is adding school safety to the enforcement applications running on its hosted Digital Video Platform. The council has started by deploying the Videalert system outside schools where illegal parking on keep clears has been identified as putting children’s lives in danger. The cameras are being installed after a survey of parents, teachers and school governors showed 84pc support.
Jim Fleming, Portsmouth City Council’s Cabinet Member for Traffic and Transportation, said: “The safety of children is utmost importance and the Videalert system extends our ability to enforce keep clear markings outside schools at drop-off and pick-up times. It provides continuous and consistent enforcement at these high risk locations and frees up our team of civil enforcement officers to focus on tactical patrols at other schools across the city.”
The new school safety cameras will work with Videalert’s hosted civil enforcement platform, deployed in the city in 2015 to capture bus lane contraventions. This lets councils add enforcement applications including parking on keep clears, as covered in parking law by Contravention Code 48.
Michael Robinson, Parking Services Manager at Portsmouth City Council, said: “Videalert’s hosted enforcement solution has proven reliability, accurately captures the number plates of vehicles committing offences in busy traffic conditions and minimises the incidence of false reads. The system also has the flexibility to allow cameras to be redeployed during school holidays to monitor and enforce additional bus lane contraventions and enhance system productivity throughout the whole year. This will enable us to extend protection to more schools and increase driver compliance during term time.”
The product combines automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) with video analytics. Using a single PTZ camera, it continuously monitors the keep clear zones and automatically captures only the drivers that are stationary in defined ‘watch areas’ and exceed the ‘watch times’. Council operators can access the dedicated hosted server and review the evidence packs using standard web browsers. Confirmed offences are then sent to the council’s Xerox SI-Dem back office processing system for issuing of fixed fines.
Tim Daniels, Sales and Marketing Director at Videalert, added: “This ease with which Portsmouth City Council has been able to add the enforcement of keep clears outside schools demonstrates how this platform meets the changing needs of councils. Our innovative hosted solution not only enables rapid deployment of CCTV enforcement at problem locations, but also provides future investment protection whilst minimising infrastructure costs.”
