I have noticed more and more of these appearing on my commute to work.
(A90 Laurencekirk-ish to Aberdeen)

They are light grey boxes, maybe the size of a briefcase, mounted about 4-feet off the ground on poles at the roadside. They use existing sign-posts etc rather than their own dedicated posts.
At one end is a white rectangle about the size of a post-card which would appear to be a translucent lense for some kind of sensor.
The boxes are angled so this lense faces directly towards the oncoming traffic.

They change the locations quite regularly, I see a lot of sign-posts etc with the mounting bracket for these boxes, but no box. The boxes get moved from location to location every few days.
No obvious connections for electricity so whatever is inside must be battery powered.

Today I saw a van parked beside one. The guy had the casing open and had a lap-top computer plugged into it. The vans markings were of the local private company that maintains this stretch of the road (Bear Scotland)


What they all about then?
Monitoring traffic levels?
watching average speeds?
Big Brother watching my driving habits?
perving at me picking my nose as I drive?

Another thing I see a lot, maybe linked, maybe not are grid patterns cut into the road surface.
I have seen them making these, they use a big disc-cutter to chop a big grid pattern into the tarmac across the lanes, then lay wires into it. It is obviously some kind of inductive sensor that detects cars going over it. Its the kind of thing you see at traffic-light junctions that detect if there are cars waiting at the lights, but these are now appearing on busy stretches of open road.

What are these all about?
There was a huge traffic "census" in Aberdeen a while ago when all motorists on busy routes were stopped at checkpoints and given things to fill in about your start-point and destination so they could tell where traffic generally came from/went to at rush hour.
I have heard rumours of trialling a "congestion charge" kind of thing in various cities throughout the uk.
I really hope this isnt somehtign to do with that.

Any clues?

 

i have no experence in Scotland but do work with some local authorities in London. down here they are delibrately altering the roads to reduce traffic flow this is council/TFL policy and once this is done just by coinccidence air quality frequently put in a monitoring unit and then declare the traffic as causing a high level of polution?

This is then used as justification when more anti car measures are suggested.

Funny enough most of the people drafting these policies in one local authority i work with do not come to work by car but cycle. obviously they earn enough from the council to be able to buy a house in inner london! and therefore can then cycle to work.

 

DAVE , these are boxes some patrol cars can plug into with measuring devices to get your speed. can't b used on ther own there has to be a car plugged in with a camera on the grey stand to get you .
hope this helps .

 

We were asked if we'd like to buy something that sounds very similar to this - they measure traffic flows, speeds, etc.etc. basically anything you want if you pay for enough bits

They can be moved around and attached to anything therefore can go everywhere, can get the data via palm pilot, laptop or bring it all back to the office...we couldn't afford it though

Adrian - blimey, that sounds a bit "big brother", wouldn't get away with doing anything like that down here Mind you, we work to provide the best facilities for the motorists, cyclists and peds...especially as most of us here love our cars! And no, we don't get paid alot, maybe I should move to London

 

Here in Dorset there are huindreds of these things popping up, seem to be in all the speed hot-spots, I'm not convinced that they're not gouing to be used for nicking people for speeding, although if I want to be optimistic, I'd hope they're for traffic monitoring, but I ain't convinced!!!

 

Ron - if something's going to be used to measure speed they have to have those black and white speed camera signs up IIRC

 

I noticed a few things like that yesterday. Didn't take a closer look though..

Those dark blue cameras - is this a traffic monitoring thing as well, or is that a speed trap?

How about those two bright yellow things down the M6? It looks like two cameras on each one, hanging out over the road, perhaps southbound, close to Preston (wasn't paying attention where they were!!). Anyone else notice these? Any ideas?

 

I've noticed round here that whenever those traffic counting wires are put across the road it means they are going to f**k something up.

The most recent one was a counting wire across the road a few hundred yds before some traffic lights.

Sure enough, a few months later the right hand lane was made right hand turn only (hardly anyone turns right). The result is a HUGE queue all waiting to carry straight on in the left hand lane and NOONE in the right hand lane.

would love to talk to whoever is responsible....

 

the whole of edinburgh is covered in these wires across the road(congestion charge figures methinks).and the blue trafficmaster posts are for info and measuring No of cars etc,the other cameras on the preston road may be specs cameras(measures average speed between 2 points and sends ticket automatically)mounting posts are usually blue ,but not all the time,

 

Franx,

They are SPECS cameras - calculate your average speed between 2 cameras and issue a ticket automatically via the DVLA !!!!
Believe they are in the roadworks around the area you mentioned.
Take care !!!!

 

I'll be ok...I was doing about 40mph when I passed those two! I assume there's some on the northbound side as well?
Ta.
Franx.

 

Jen
Going back a couple of years i was in Highways office of a london local authority and they had a plan showing a road i know well and the trafic island being moved towards the junction when i querried this with one of the staff he said it was to restrict traffic flow at this junction and was not their idea but it was now policy to create bottle knecks so that traffic would not move freely and therefore people will disuaded from using there car. obviously all the signage during the works claimed it was to improve the junction!!

I also work for Air quality for a local authority occasionally and am friendly with some of the staff and it is strange how many of the new units go in within 6 months of the above road alterations therefore not showing the before picture but only the pollution created by the newly created congestion which then is used for more anti car measures rather than a reason to alter the junction back so traffic can flow again.

also i was walking along the chelsea embankment next to Albert bridge and was handed a leaflet by a person carrying out a consultation exercise for TFL (Transport for London) about removing one of the two lanes to install a cycle lane with concrete islands to seperate it form the cars etc. no where were the hundreds of motorists sitting in the traffic jam next to me consulted but the 10 people per hour walking or cycling were! funny enough although you can walk under the bridge on the embankment they now propose installing a pedistran crossing island with traffic lights and with all the distrubtion to traffic flow rather than asking people to use the existing path?

need i go on because i can if people don't believe that it is a coordinated plan.

 

Arian - I didn't doubt you, funny things go on, especially in London! - but it's not fair to "tar everyone with the same brush" if you see what I mean, gives all of us working in Traffic Management (like me ) a bad name. I certainly try to do the best job I can, consult as many people as I can and only make calls based on facts, not speculation.

The govt. policies are to promote cycle/pt use, so we do try to do this, but not at the expense of pissing the road network up. I do the best job I can, I've been in University for four years and currently undertaking more qualifications and I do it all for £17,500 - I do it 'cos I love the job and like to try and *improve* things. I can honestly say if we were to try and do stuff like you described we'd be pulled up pretty sharpish.

But as I said, I don't doubt you - funny things go on in Local Govt. and when they do they're usually related to hte elected memebers or someone wearing sandles and riding a bike

 

Sorry - that post above was me - I didn't realise I was logged in as the husband!