Networked cameras mean rogue operators face being stopped on sight

DVSA is to move towards more targeted enforcement as it seeks to help law-abiding operators with compliance and drive serious offenders, including those from abroad, out of business – according to Matt Baker, DVSA’s national roadside delivery manager, speaking during the Freight Transport Association’s Transport Manager’s Conference in Chepstow.

He highlighted the success of the Remote Enforcement Office (REO), run as a pilot in the South West traffic area, which concentrated upon vehicles prohibited at the roadside, mostly for load security issues.

Instead of following up such an incident with a visit to the operator, the REO had requested copies of check and inspection records and other relevant paperwork, giving them a snapshot of the operator’s attitude to compliance. This had enabled them to intervene in three times as many cases as would have been done had physical visits been required, with less stress and disruption for the operators concerned.

“We are trying to intervene at the right level: helping those who wish to be compliant and confronting the deliberately non-compliant,” Mr Baker said.

“We are working to ensure that people do not gain a business advantage by breaking the law.”

One way in which this was being done was by networking all DVSA’s automatic number plate recognition cameras (ANPRs) so targeted vehicles could be tracked and traced wherever they were in the country. DVSA hoped to network other ANPR cameras to aid it in this task.

Foreign-registered trucks would not escape, Mr Baker promised, pointing out that they could be recognised and that information was exchanged with authorities overseas.

“The networked cameras give us a ‘heat map’ which reveals where an operator’s vehicles have been, and when. It’s centrally controlled: we are no longer dependent on individual sites being able to identify such vehicles and pull them in.

“We now operate 24/7 at Dover, and where we are dealing with serially non-complaint operators we will stop them wherever and whenever we see them. This means every time that they pass a checkpoint, irrespective of whether they have already been checked that day.

“The aim is to force them into compliance or out of the country. The time it costs them is just as damaging to most of them as the penalties.”

Mr Baker added that he was surprised by the high level of compliance with the HGV road user levy from foreign operators.