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M62 - Your Local History
A lot of finds were uncovered during the archaeological evaluation carried out for the M62 Junction 6 Improvement scheme so we thought it would be nice to provide an interactive website so you can see what we found.
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Better information for your journey
The National Traffic Control Centre collects real-time information on road conditions
Quick Links
Don't Cross or Walk Along Motorways
The Highways Agency aims to make more people aware of the dangers of walking or crossing our motorway. We have launched a poster and radio campaign aimed at 16-25yr olds. Hopefully with our hard hitting posters, our message will come across.
Meet the Ancestors
Find out about the history of roads and the work the Agency does to preserve archaeological remains.
See when traffic will be lightest
Our traffic forecaster can help get you there quicker
Cameras
Why does the Highways Agency use ANPR?
The HA currently operates an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) camera system through the National Traffic Control Centre (NTCC) with around 1,100 cameras. These cameras can be identified by their bright green casings, and are spread across around 500 sites on motorways and trunk roads. The data gathered is used to calculate journey times across the Highways Agency's network and enables the NTCC to communicate this to the travelling public through services such as Traffic England.
The Highways Agency's ANPR cameras read a Vehicle's Registration Number (VRN) as vehicles pass them. The number plates are immediately converted though a mathematical process (known as hashing) into non-unique reference numbers (known as tags) at the roadside and the same number plate will generate the same tag on every pass of a NTCC ANPR camera. It is not possible to accurately derive the original number plate from the tag which is not unique to a number plate i.e. a number of different number plates can produce the same tag. The system presently records about 14 million tags a day and the ANPR camera system transmits the following data to the NTCC at 5 minute intervals.
- The Hashed Tag
- The time the Tag was registered
- Country of origin (derived from the original plate)
- Site Number of the ANPR camera
The camera system does not transmit
- Images of the driver
- Images of the vehicle
- Images of the license plate
- The 'original' number plate characters
Through matching these tags at consecutive cameras the NTCC can derive a journey time between those two points.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do you keep the data for?
As the data is non personal information (due to the non-unique tag format) there are no Data Protection restrictions on how long we keep it. Currently, the data is kept indefinitely for modelling the network effectively and anticipating drivers' behaviour in response to incidents on the road network.
Do you provide the data to third parties?
No. The data is only collected for the NTCC to model the network effectively through the calculation of journey times
Do you send data to the police?
No. The non-unique tag data obtained from the Highways Agency's ANPR camera is only transmitted to the NTCC over secure data networks.
Do you support the police in other ways?
In common with the statutory duty of any public body, the Highways Agency will provide assistance to the Police in the investigation of specific serious crimes (typically those which carry a life sentence). The hashing process creates a non-unique tag that may consequently apply to a number of vehicles. The Highways Agency cannot therefore be definitive about a specific vehicle, and can only say whether or not one or more vehicles with that non-unique tag was observed at the location and within the specified time parameters.
Can the cameras search for specific tags?
No - The cameras record what passes them and send that data to the NTCC at 5 minute intervals.
More information
Responses to queries concerning ANPR can be found below:
http://www.highways.gov.uk/foiresponses/FOIresponses/25390.aspx
http://www.highways.gov.uk/foiresponses/FOIresponses/23154.aspx
http://www.highways.gov.uk/foiresponses/FOIresponses/21906.aspx
