Road safety company Acusensus is building three new trailers for the UK, equipped with AI technology to detect people using mobile phones at the wheel or not wearing a seatbelt.
The trailers will be delivered in early summer 2023 and follow what the company said were successful pilots delivered with AECOM, National Highways and police forces across the UK.
They use Acusensus' ‘Heads-up’ technology to analyse images captured by cameras optimised to flag up likely violations, using AI software that analyses images in near real-time.
When a possible case of distracted driving is identified, anonymised images are sent to a secure cloud for human review.
A secondary check will validate whether an offence has occurred, allowing the creation of an offence file that can be – and has been – used by the police for prosecution.
The trailers under construction. Credit: Acusensus
Acusensus said the first state-wide scheme, rolled out in New South Wales in 2019, shows a significant impact on driver behaviour, with the number of mobile phone detections dropping by a factor of six.
UK general manager Geoff Collins said: ‘The van-based safety checks on our roads have shown a small but significant number of drivers who are still irresponsibly putting themselves and other drivers at risk by using a phone while driving, and not wearing a seatbelt.
‘The investment in these extra trailers means we can deploy our life-saving technology at specific locations for longer, getting a better idea of the scale of the problem, the number of repeat offenders and the types of drivers involved.
‘This will help highway authorities and police forces to build a strategy to address these dangers, change behaviours and make our roads safer.'
The Heads Up system won the ITS (UK) Enforcement Scheme of the Year Award in October for a project delivered with AECOM, National Highways and Warwickshire Police.
You can read more about the firm in the March issue of Highways magazine.
