RE: Fibre optic cables stretch along the motorways

RE: Fibre optic cables stretch along the motorways

Wednesday 13th September 2006

Surveillance system installation is underway

Fibre optic cables stretch along the motorways


Automatic Number Plate Recognition: just the start of the roadside surveillance project
Automatic Number Plate Recognition: just the start of the roadside surveillance project

The Highways Agency is trumpeting how well work is progressing on its £490 million National Roads Telecommunication Service project, whose ostensible aim is to upgrade motorway communications. We benefit via more accurate, real-time information about travel conditions on motorways, reckons the HA. They benefit because they can watch us all, whatever we do and wherever we go.

Phase one of the project, including installing fibre-optic cables alongside motorways to join up the existing telecoms network, is underway on a 25 kilometre stretch of the M62 between J22 and J26; nearly complete on the M4 between J10 and J12, and just starting on the M3 between J2 to J9.

Drivers using these routes will have seen the purple pipes used to protect the fibre optic cables in the verges where work has taken place.

The Highways Agency operates a dedicated telecommunications network that connects thousands of roadside devices to a network of traffic control centres across the country. Made up of fibre optic and copper cables that run along the length of England's motorways, the network links more than 14,000 message signs, emergency telephones, CCTV cameras and traffic monitoring systems to the control centres. The telecoms network will be fully digital by September 2007.

The Minister for Roads, Dr Stephen Ladyman, said: "Significant investment is being made to upgrade the motorway communications infrastructure so drivers can have access to accurate, real time information and use it to plan their journeys more effectively. Together with other initiatives such as the Highways Agency traffic officer service and its national and regional control centres, the Highways Agency is working to make journeys easier on England's motorways."

The fact that fibre optic cable can carry any kind of digital signal, including those from the surveillance cameras which are already springing up at roadsides near you, goes unmentioned in the HA's publicity material.

Remember: you're being watched -- wherever you go.

Author
Discussion

mrloudly

Original Poster:

2,815 posts

234 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
ANPR on motorways... My bet is they'll be generating "toll" bills for us within ten years.

neilr

1,512 posts

262 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
it will be sold to the sheeple on the concept of safety and convenience of planning your journey, when in reality its intended use is to monitor the movement of the motorway using population. It won't take to long for it to proliferate onto A roads once its rolled out on motorways. theres too much money and too much information to be had. The criminals in whitehall are full speed ahead with their big brother society, its not a paranoid conspiracy theory, it's fact and its happening NOW to YOU and to ME. its up to us to do something about it.

Dogwatch

6,222 posts

221 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
The cost must have been enormous on the M4 alone. Wonder if there is some other use planned which we won't be told about? After all a national network of cabling beside the motorways doesn't have to be restricted to traffic related data. scratchchin

aston67

872 posts

229 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
not a penny to really improve roads... but plenty to invest in "safety"

when this madness will stop? I am sick of these politicians and those together in hitting motorists at every possible opportunity

the idea to be tracked every second makes me sick and furious

where are the media when this orwellian project is developed?

where is the stupid and useless opposition of the Tories in all this?

why NO ONE is raising the hand and say enough is enough?

rant over

Timberwolf

5,340 posts

217 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
It may be usable as the first step towards road charging. I've heard that the government are sizing up "tag and beacon" style controls as a possibility for rushing through a road charging system before the next election should they be likely to lose.

(Whether they could ever get an IT project of that size off the ground is another thing entirely, given the current track record.)

However, it may also be usable for automated, low-maintenance, high-penetration ANPR. In which we would probably end up with a tiered road system; a motorway network for "us", and the roads without ANPR for the untaxed and uninsured unwashed. Unfortunately this would most likely lead to a rather large amount of car "cloning" as well.

(What are the penalties for illegally assigning a new identity to your car?)

The bottom line is, we won't know what exactly the system will be used for until they start using it in earnest. A bit of speculation can't hurt, though...

deadlym

117 posts

231 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
article said:
We benefit via more accurate, real-time information about travel conditions on motorways, reckons the HA

Whitewash: we already get that information, presumably using the inductive loops in the road, in the "travel time to junction x" trial on the M5/M6 at the moment.

r988

7,495 posts

228 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
neilr said:
its up to us to do something about it.


and what is it you suggest we do?

GIMPTON

213 posts

269 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
r988 said:
neilr said:
its up to us to do something about it.


and what is it you suggest we do?


A large group of people get in their cars drive onto the motorway and then stop and refuse to move. Believ me that would get the point across.

Its got to the point when normal law abiding members of the public have to start using these methods. Bet yer we would be knicked and banged up longer than first time drug dealers, burglers etc, thus exposing another failure of government.



deltafox

3,839 posts

231 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
GIMPTON said:
r988 said:
neilr said:
its up to us to do something about it.


and what is it you suggest we do?


A large group of people get in their cars drive onto the motorway and then stop and refuse to move. Believ me that would get the point across.

Its got to the point when normal law abiding members of the public have to start using these methods. Bet yer we would be knicked and banged up longer than first time drug dealers, burglers etc, thus exposing another failure of government.





Its a great idea and i love it. Its got a minor flaw or two.
1) the rozzers would immediately attempt to arrest everyone using their newly found "terror" legislation.
2) Itd piss off a lot of ordinary roadusers who would inevitably whine and bitch that "i cant get to alton towers coz u lot are in the way" type of comments, but them anyway!
Otherwise i think its a stormer.

It needs a little finessing though, like , more than one motorway targetted in one go, rolling blocks with cars overtaking to replace the ones blocking (harder to ID the "ringleaders" all front plates taken off so the bastards cant ID any of the cars with cameras, an en masse mega speed up when the venue is thru just to piss off the scum in power and their "all to eager to please boot boys".

turbobungle

574 posts

223 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
mad Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! F:censoreding wcensoreders, how abou spending £490,000,000 on catching fcensoreding hoody wearing machine-gun toting teenagers and rapists for fcensoredk sake! mad

Slowlane

38 posts

213 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
mrloudly said:
ANPR on motorways... My bet is they'll be generating "toll" bills for us within ten years.


more like 2 years m8

alphadog

2,049 posts

232 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
Real time traffic information? Already got it. Had it for 10 years in fact. It's called Trafficmaster.

Also got a Tracker fitted so that blows the 'It'll help if your car is stolen' bollox they spout!

Edited by alphadog on Wednesday 13th September 20:00

GAV 1N

1 posts

210 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
Everything "not so New Labour" does, has a stealthy hidden undercurrent of raising revenue. The system will be installed run for 5 to 6 days, maybe even less. Then, as a footnote, somewhere on a report, it will say "Charge, Charge, Charge". Take it on the chin and pay up cos you've got no choice.

raa247

49 posts

227 months

Wednesday 13th September 2006
quotequote all
'Drivers using these routes will have seen the purple pipes used to protect the fibre optic cables in the verges where work has taken place'

Those are the purple pipes that that are buried until they get to a bridge where they're left to swing in the breeze hanging from the bridge rail. It's this level of organisation that HA are famous for.rolleyes


RAA

vipers

32,797 posts

227 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
490 mill, now how about putting some of that towards the road work gangs to work 24/7 thus getting road works completed quicker, and reducing the frustration of thousands of motorists forced into single lane queus day after day.....

mikeyboy

5,018 posts

234 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
vipers said:
490 mill, now how about putting some of that towards the road work gangs to work 24/7 thus getting road works completed quicker, and reducing the frustration of thousands of motorists forced into single lane queus day after day.....


absolutely, and surely road safety is improved by better investment in improved road surfaces and driver education rather than passively watching traffic (if thats what this system is for?)
I do think they are going to toll us, the've already said they would, and I think this is a small part of the build up to it. However in the usual dumb-ass gadget obsessed way that New Labour thinks they've gone for the most complex and unreliable system they could come up with. What is the matter with toll gates like they have in France and we had until the 19th century? Plus how long before they realise that by tolling the motorways they simply force freight and other traffic onto smaller roads rather than onto trains etc?

Couldn't the constant monitoring of our activities be considered an infringement of our human right to free movement?

Can't help thinking all this activity to gain revenue could be solved by an audit and rationalisation of government. One or two thousand unnessescary people out there doing not much with our money.

bez_uk

172 posts

211 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
I think blocking road is great idea... how about you guys head to london and do that and leave M1 free so I can goto alton towers then?

Polarbert

17,923 posts

230 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
New Scheme said:
The Highways Agency operates a dedicated telecommunications network that connects thousands of roadside devices to a network of traffic control centres across the country. Made up of fibre optic and copper cables that run along the length of England's motorways, the network links more than 14,000 message signs, emergency telephones, CCTV cameras and traffic monitoring systems to the control centres. The telecoms network will be fully digital by September 2007. Judgement day occurs 3pm August 17th, 2009. 40 million lives are lost.


Anyone else think that that paragraph sounds like something out of terminator to do with SkyNet?

J1mmyD

1,823 posts

218 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
I seem to remember the figure that was touted about a few months ago that the 'average driver' is caught on camera over 300 times a day. Who's going to need satellite tracking to bill you per mile?

stenniso

350 posts

230 months

Thursday 14th September 2006
quotequote all
mikeyboy said:
What is the matter with toll gates like they have in France and we had until the 19th century?


You only need to look at the highway robbery booths at the Dartford Crossing to get your answer. A Government that is so concerned about the environment, and the effects that congestion has on our lives, then creates a huge tailback on the busiest motorway in Europe, just to extract a quid from all of us.

In comparison, the motorways/autoroutes I've driven on in France, Spain and Portugal are far less busy, so traffic queues at the tolls are negligible by our UK standards. I've seen longer queues at the Dartford crossing at 2am than you see on European motorways at the height of rush hour. If you add toll booths at every motorway junction in the UK, the road network would instantly stop.

On the continent they also seem to offer an automated pass system similar to Dart-tag (used at the Dartford Crossing), but like the Dart-tag scheme, the majority of people prefer to stop and pay cash, rather than risk an unpredictable bill later in the month, and of course having their movements recorded.

Before we copy other European countries with their use of tolls, we should also look at other factors, like France's fast and modern rail system, well maintained autoroutes, different working hours, population density, enthusiasm for cycling, and a tendency for people to live near where they work. Unfortunately the only one our Government looks at is the one that generates money.

Edited by stenniso on Thursday 14th September 15:33