Officers will wear the body-worn cameras while conducting patrols across England’s strategic road network (SRN) which comprises 4,300 miles of motorway and major roads in England.
According to National Highways its traffic officers help to keep traffic flowing smoothly and are responsible for keeping road users safe during more than four million journeys that they claim take place across England’s motorways and major roads each day.
Mel Clarke, customer service director of National Highways, said: “Our traffic officers patrol England’s motorways and major roads 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are at the front line to keep people safe and help the network run smoothly.
“The body-worn cameras protect citizens and our traffic officers and are now part of the officer’s uniform. This investment forms part of our commitment to maintaining the safety of England’s roads and providing greater operational visibility for our staff and the general public.”
The rugged VB400 is designed to withstand rigorous use in all situations and captures high-quality video and audio in all weather and light conditions according to Motorola. The deployment also included Motorola Solutions’ VideoManager evidence management software to upload and manage the recorded video securely in the cloud.
Fergus Mayne, Motorola’s UK & Ireland manager, said: “The VB400 body-worn cameras are developed locally in the U.K and will support the safety of millions of passengers who drive across England’s major roads during the day and night.
“By deploying the cameras to all traffic officers, National Highways has committed to the highest levels of safety for everyone who travels and works on the roads.”
The National Highways deployment is one of several recent applications of Motorola’s BWV by UK public safety organisations including NHS England, Lancashire Constabulary and Police Scotland.
It also marks a second major deployment for Motorola in the past week having supplied Swisscom a next generation, 3GPP standards-compliant push-to-talk (PTT) solution.
Zermatt Bergbahnen, Switzerland’s largest cable car company, is one of the first companies using the new solution to improve operational efficiency and safety across 200km of pistes in the Matterhorn mountain area (pictured above). Its staff will rely on the new PTT service to communicate and share information in support of daily operations, such as patrolling slopes, as well as to manage critical rescue efforts in emergency situations.
As part of the contract, Motorola Solutions is also providing a range of rugged devices, including the TLK100, Evolveand LEX L11, which are designed to withstand harsh environments, deliver exceptional audio quality with noise cancellation and have dedicated PTT and emergency buttons.
