Civica’s VIPER ANPR/WIMS solution victorious for VOSA
Civica, Applied Traffic and VOSA have won the ITS Technology Award for Excellence for their VIPER traffic intelligence solution. VIPER is a unique system that allows VOSA officers to target overloaded vehicles on UK roads more effectively than ever before.
Civica, Applied Traffic and VOSA have won the ITS Technology Award for Excellence for their VIPER traffic intelligence solution. VIPER is a unique system that allows VOSA officers to target overloaded vehicles on UK roads more effectively than ever before.
The award will be officially made to Civica and its partners, VOSA and Applied, by former Transport Minister Steven Norris, at the prestigious ITS World Congress held in London’s Excel Conference Centre on 12 October. Civica will also be demonstrating VIPER at the event at stand G45.
Following a successful pilot of VIPER on a stretch of the M6 motorway near Birmingham, which achieved a 700% improvement in identifying and prohibiting overweight vehicles, VOSA has chosen to roll-out the traffic management solution to 14 sites across the UK.
A joint programme by VOSA, the Highways Agency (HA), the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Central Motorway Police Group (CMPG), the pilot was operated between June 2004 and December 2005. The results were impressive, with over 95% of overweight vehicles identified and stopped by VIPER leading to a prohibition being issued and the vehicle being taken off the road.
VIPER is a unique innovative solution that is a combination of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Weigh-In Motion System (WIMS) technologies that enables the automatic recording and detection of overloaded vehicles at the roadside.
Overloaded vehicles pose a number of risks that VOSA want to reduce including:
· The safety risk and potential danger to other road users
· Damage to roads, bridges and pavements (the pilot prohibitions saved the equivalent road wear of over half a million saloon car journeys)
· Unfair disadvantage to tax paying, compliant road users.
· As well as helping to identify overloaded vehicles, VIPER assists in identifying drivers not conforming to regulation driving hours.
Kevin James, ANPR/WIMS Senior Business Owner, Intelligence & Targeting Department, VOSA, said: “VIPER demonstrates the wide possibilities of ANPR when combined with other technologies such as WIMS and is helping make the UK roads safer by enabling us to very accurately identify overweight vehicles that potentially cause a danger to other motorists.
“VIPER is also assisting us to reduce damage to UK roads caused by these illegal vehicles, helping reduce the costs of premature road repairs.”
Gavin Freed, managing director, Civica, said: “We are delighted at winning the ITS Technology award with our partners. Civica is committed to working with VOSA to help it continue to deliver an unparalleled traffic intelligence solution that is helping to reduce the burden on UK roads and provide more efficient services.”