Decision

To award a contract for the installation and
maintenance of an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and
CCTV Enforcement System at Cawood Swing Bridge to Clearview
Intelligence Ltd. The contract being awarded on Lot 7 of the Crown
Commercial Services Transport Technology & Associated Services
Framework (RM6099). The total value (installation and maintenance)
of the contract over five years is £114,500 excluding VAT and
inflation.

North Yorkshire Council’s Trading Standards will be
responsible for the enforcing of the restriction and will utilise
the new system to do this.

Reasons for the decision

The Listed bridge has a 10t weight limit. The
weight limit is currently enforced using a camera system, however,
that contract has now ended and the existing system is no longer
able to be supported due to age. Following a serious vandal attack
on the bridge in 2023, the new ANPR system will incorporate a CCTV
component.

The new system will use a computer algorithm to detect if the
vehicle is car, lorry etc. If it believes it could be over the
weight limit it will do a search on the DVLA database to ascertain
max gross weight, that search will be saved so that it does not
repeat the search for regular users.

This is far more advanced than the current system which uses
induction loops in the road to trigger the camera. This mainly
still picks up cars and doesn’t always pick up vehicles over
the weight limit due to limitations of how the loops work. The data
is currently individually checked by an NYC officer which is time
consuming. The new system will be much more accurate and will
automatically create evidence packs, saving the NYC officer a
significant amount of time

Alternative options considered

If the system becomes non-functional, there is
a ‘service credit’ arrangement in the contract which
allows NYC to 2% annual opex per week up to a cap of 20% total opex
per year. While this provides little incentive to repair the
system, NYC have explored multiple avenues of procuring this
system, finding none to be completely satisfactory to the benefit
of the client.

Further exploration could be made, however, we currently no longer
have a functioning enforcement system on the bridge and leaving the
bridge without this for a prolonged period puts it at risk.