Surveillance system installation is underway
Fibre optic cables stretch along the motorways
 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.
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
(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...
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.
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".
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! F:censoreding w
ers, how abou spending £490,000,000 on catching f
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.
RAA
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.
Anyone else think that that paragraph sounds like something out of terminator to do with SkyNet?
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.
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