Portsmouth City Council Deploys UK’s First Fully Hosted Civil Enforcement Platform

Portsmouth City Council has awarded Videalert a ground-breaking contract to deploy its new DfT Manufacturer Certified hosted solution, the UK’s first hosted civil enforcement platform that does not require any hardware or software to be installed on customer premises. It will enable the council to rapidly introduce unattended enforcement at a number of bus lane locations in the city to reduce the high incidence of contraventions currently committed by motorists and enable the provision of an even better public transport service.

According to Michael Robinson, Parking Services Manager at Portsmouth City Council: “We liked the fact that Videalert’s hosted enforcement solution is so easy to install because it does not require the procurement and deployment of any equipment within our IT infrastructure or software on local PCs for evidence pack review. This is the first phase of a long-term programme to deploy enforcement across the city to reduce congestion and speed up public transport.”

As part of the contract the council will be acquiring cameras and RDS units which will be installed on lamp posts to provide video processing at the network edge. Using Videalert’s unique intelligent software platform, offences are automatically captured and a dedicated hosted server within Videalert’s Virtual Server Farm retrieves evidence packs from the RDS units via a cellular 3G/4G connection. This allows trained council operators to access and review the evidence packs using standard web browsers. Confirmed offences are transmitted to the council’s Xerox SI-Dem back office processing system for the issuance of PCNs. Videalert is providing Portsmouth with a dedicated virtual server to guarantee the highest level of security and integrity with cloud storage used for backup.

“This innovative hosted enforcement solution enhances the ability of councils to respond rapidly to operational and strategic requests for deployments over both the short and long-term,” added Videalert. “It also provides councils with the flexibility and future investment protection (as and when legislated) to enforce the full range of moving traffic offences including banned turns, yellow box junctions, weight restrictions and keep clears outside schools, without needing to undertake a major IT infrastructure project.”

“Outsourcing to a hosted enforcement environment enables councils to improve efficiency, increase income and maintain greater control over costs,” continued Videalert. “As well as reducing infrastructure and software costs, Videalert’s hosted service also eliminates the potential support issues that often occur when sharing IT resources with other council departments.”