Videalert

UK’s Bristol City Council has awarded a major contract to Videalert to install its new digital video platform to relay traffic information in the city.

Videalert’s platform is a multipoint solution that uses standard off-the-shelf equipment and easily integrates with the council’s existing cameras and infrastructure.

The system went live in March and enables the council to enforce moving traffic offences such as bus lanes, banned turns and box junctions.

The Videalert system is offering real-time VRM data to the city’s central urban traffic management control system for traffic modelling and journey time information, along with helping Avon and Somerset Police in crime prevention initiatives and investigations.

Data collected and analysed by the Videalert system provides essential information to optimise transport scheme designs in central Bristol.

"The Videalert platform is highly scalable, supports our existing analogue cameras and allows us to progressively migrate to a mixed analogue/digital camera environment."

It also contributes to the Safer Bristol Partnership’s project, which includes the installation of an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera-based network around the city to tackle crime.

Bristol City Council transport group manager Duncan Laird said that the council wanted to engage a single supplier to implement a back-office hardware and software solution that would give it the flexibility to support multiple traffic management applications and disseminate information to the council, Avon and Somerset Police and other stakeholders.

"The Videalert platform is highly scalable, supports our existing analogue cameras and allows us to progressively migrate to a mixed analogue/digital camera environment," Laird said.

As part of the first phase of the project, the Videalert platform has been installed at 15 sites across the city, connecting a total of 65 ANPR and Context View cameras. The network is expected to be extended further in the future.

"The new system is far more than just another ANPR system and provides us with a cost-effective and reliable way of detecting incidents and relaying the information to the city’s traffic control centre, as well as quantifying the value of highway improvements and testing new traffic schemes," Laird added.

Image: The Videalert system offers VRM Data for journey time information to the council’s central UTMC system. Photo: courtesy of Videalert.