Paul Thompson Introduction
I’m Paul from Little Hulton, I work for a traffic management (TM)/roadworks company as a TM Supervisor. It’s recently changed to a dual role with some Health & Safety thrown in, such as, tool box talks; tweaking the risk assessments and method statements; and auditing our crews etc.
As a company we install Traffic Management; road markings and install loop inductors (eg for traffic light control). We also do some highways related civils work, such as, installing speed cameras (including the new Vector SR cameras that they don’t seem to like very much in Wigan!!).
I’ve worked on the roads for about 16 years. My best role so far was on the Highways Agency Incident Support Unit from 2009-2012. We dealt with RTC’s and network defects, such as, potholes; damage to crown property; litter; sharps, etc.
Roadworks – VECTOR SR speed camera installations.
A couple of months ago, we received a list of approx 20 VECTOR SR cameras to replace, as they had been ‘cut down’!! Jenoptik have come up with ‘armour’ for them, to protect them from the people doing just that – ie cutting the camera down. We have installed the armour (or shrouds as Jenoptik call them) on the replacement cameras, we will also be retrofitting the armour at other high-risk locations over time, hopefully before they get vandalised!
For us to install these cameras it involves:
- a 2-man traffic management (TM) crew in a 3.5t van,
- a 3-man civils gang in a 3.5t van,
- a Mobile Elevating Work Platform (MEWP) and
- a HIAB (a Lorry mounted crane).
The TM crew will usually install 2-way temporary traffic lights and a footway closure. The installation time per camera is one day shift – we are usually restricted to 0930-1530hrs, as that’s ‘off-peak’. Our bill to Jenoptik will be approx. £4k to £5k per camera installation. It will be similar costings for the shroud install only, but we’ll do 2 or 3 per day of those.
Once we have installed them, Jenpotik will calibrate the camera, when they are signed off they can start earning their money!
They’re the latest in ‘spot camera’ technology from German manufacturer Jenoptik Traffic Solutions. Also doubling as a red-light camera, the new technology detects motorists for more than just speeding, these cameras will snap motorists who aren’t wearing a seatbelt and motorists using a mobile phone at the wheel. The camera doesn’t flash, it uses infra-red low light technology which allows images to be captured via still photos and video recordings.
The originals on the left, and on the right those now fitted with armour (shroud).
So far, none of the armoured ones have been cut down – that we’re aware of.
Paul Thompson