Changes to speed limit enforcement techniques on Britain’s roads seem likely as the impending obsolescence of hundreds of film-based speed cameras prompts councils and the police to review their strategies.

The issue, which affects the whole country, will be highlighted in a paper to Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council’s cabinet on September 21st 2009.

Ken Wheat, Rotherham’s transportation unit manager, said that it was becoming harder to find replacement parts for the film-based cameras and the cameras themselves were expected to be obsolete within three years. He said digital cameras offered a number of advantages over film cameras: staff don’t have to visit the site to change film; there is no film processing; the cameras have far more capacity to record offences; and the camera units are harder to vandalise.

But councillors will also hear that the conversion cost for each site is about £40,000. “That’s a significant sum of money and we haven’t got a bottomless pit,” said Wheat, lead officer for road safety across South Yorkshire.

He said the looming obsolescence of film-based cameras was prompting the South Yorkshire conurbation authorities and South Yorkshire police to review whether cameras were the best device for improving road safety in the county.

“It would be poor management not to review the value for money of those changes [from film to digital cameras]. We need to consider whether we can afford to do all sites or whether there are alternatives that would achieve the same outputs for less money and don’t involve prosecuting people.”

Safety camera project manager John Farr said the DfT’s Road Safety Grant, introduced in 2007 after the ending of the direct funding of safety camera partnerships from fine income, was predominantly revenue-based. “Capital money in the grant has historically been set at a level to allow new investment in a handful of cameras housings per annum. That’s not enough to fund a major investment programme.” Furthermore, the future of the grant is in doubt beyond March 2011.

Thanks,
Staff at South Yorkshire Transport