Speed cameras to monitor average speeds between two checkpoints

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The speed cameras on Finnish highways are likely to start calculating the average speed of vehicles between two camera points already from next year.
      At present the cameras merely measure vehicular speeds based on probes in the road at the site of a camera.
      The Police Department at the Ministry of the Interior is preparing a test in which post cameras will measure the average speed of motorists between two surveillance posts. A vehicle's licence number together with the time of when it drove past a camera will be recorded on a camera hard drive.
     
Chief inspector Heikki Ihalainen from the Ministry of the Interior Police Department predicts that the monitoring of average speeds with automated equipment will commence already next year.
      The first experiments are likely to take place in Southeastern Finland in the Kuusankoski region near the new police technology centre.
      "The test site has not yet been officially named, but at the technology centre we have the sufficient know-how", Ihalainen explains.
      The use of surveillance cameras to measure the average speed was first reported on Thursday by the daily Etelä-Suomen Sanomat.
     
There is positive feedback from the use of post cameras in assessing the average speeds of vehicles between two posts at least from Germany and Great Britain.
      Just like Finland, Norway and Sweden too are preparing to expand the use of automated equipment in traffic monitoring.
      "The monitoring of average speeds will result in lower speeds on the entire stretch, not just at the site of a camera post", Ihalainen points out.
     
In Western Finland the Ministry of the Interior will also experiment with monitoring cameras in areas with changing speed limits.
      "Even in that experiment we will have to consider wireless data transfer, which can then be utilised when measuring average speeds."
      At present 2,800 kilometres of the Finnish highways are monitored by automatic camera equipment. There are already 700 camera posts, with a hundred more in place by the end of the year.
      This year, the cameras have recorded around 75,000 speed violations, which have led to warnings as well as fines.
      Last year’s figure for the entire year was 48,000.
      This year, by the end of September, the speed cameras had observed around 19 million vehicles driving past them. Again, the corresponding figure for the whole of last year was 14 million.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Zero tolerance campaign against speeding on Highway 51 proves effective (20.9.2007)
  Two out of three motorists exceed speed limits on major highways leading into Helsinki (17.3.2006)

Links:
  Finnish Police: Automatic Speed Surveillance

Helsingin Sanomat