VOSA to target illegal vehicles using VIPER ANPR/WIMS
VOSA to target illegal vehicles using VIPER solution from Civica and Applied Traffic

ANPR/WIMS solution is being rolled out to a number of chosen VOSA sites
enabling automatic detection of overloaded vehicles nationwide

Civica, one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software and managed services for the public sector, is helping the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) target overloaded vehicles on UK roads using the VIPER traffic management solution, developed with assistance from VOSA and in partnership with WIMS specialist Applied Traffic Ltd.

Following a successful pilot of VIPER on a stretch of the M6 motorway near Birmingham which achieved a 700% improvement in identifying and prohibiting overweight vehicles, VOSA has chosen to roll-out the traffic management solution to a number of sites across the UK.

The pilot, from June 2004 to December 2005, was a joint project between VOSA, the Highways Agency, the Department for Transport and the Central Motorway Police Group. Over 95% of overweight vehicles identified by VIPER that were stopped led to a prohibition being issued and the vehicle being taken off the road.

VIPER is an innovative solution using a combination of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Weigh-In Motion System (WIMS) technologies that enables the automatic recording and detection of overloaded vehicles at the roadside.

Overloaded vehicles pose a number of risks that VOSA wants to reduce including:

• safety risk and danger to other road users
• damage to roads, bridges and pavements (the pilot prohibitions saved the equivalent road wear of over ½ million saloon car journeys)
• unfair disadvantage to tax paying road users (the greater load on a vehicle the cheaper the transportation costs)

VIPER helps cut the risk of overloading and also assists in identifying drivers not conforming to regulation driving hours.