History

When roadworks are taking place on the highway, they are usually delivered under a reduced speed limit as a result of the increased risk through potential factors such as; narrow lanes, degraded surface, poor lines of sight, adverse cambers, distraction from works and more. For many years, these reduced speed limits were enforced using the technologies available to enforcement operators, including ‘spot speed’ cameras and hand held speed guns. However, both of these approaches were never ideal or popular in the long sections of traffic management typically seen with a works zone.

‘Spot speed’ cameras can result in sudden braking, when drivers see the camera or check marks on the road – this can lead to congestion or even collisions, as the following vehicles compensate by braking hard too. Hand held or van mounted speed devices are similarly not ideal within a works zone, because a vehicle or officer will need to be present within the construction area, which presents a personal safety risk as well as potentially leading to sudden braking when drivers see their speed is being measured.

In 1994, a prototype version of the SPECS Average Speed Cameras was installed on the M20 in Kent, where vehicles’ number plates were captured at two locations within the roadworks, allowing an average speed to be calculated. This concept was further developed with a more advanced system installed on the M62 J18-20 in 2002, which was the UK’s first roadworks enforced Average Speed Camera scheme. Data captured from this project proved that traffic continued to flow smoothly through the works zone, largely eliminating the ‘camera surfing’ behaviours that were seen with older camera technologies.

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