Decision details

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.

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

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.