‘NOISE cameras’ to detect and fine drivers of cars and motorbikes with loud illegally-modified exhausts are unlikely to be installed on South Gloucestershire’s roads.
The government has given the go-ahead to use the technology, but has left it up to councils and the police to decide whether to use it – and warned it may not be cost effective.
A system combining a noise detector and an automatic number plate recognition camera to record vehicle number plates was installed alongside the Avon Ring Road during November 2022 as part of a national trial.
The council and then Kingswood MP Chris Skidmore made a successful bid to be included in the Department for Transport pilot scheme, after residents living near the road, including in Downend, Emersons Green, Mangotsfield and Siston Hill, complained about increasing noise levels.
The location for the trial near the Aspects Leisure Park was chosen as representative of typical heavy dual carriageway or motorway traffic.
The detector was in place for a week. During that time it was passed by an estimated 80,000 vehicles.
A report into the trial found that the A4174 noise detector was activated 266 times, including 197 times by cars and 35 by motorbikes.
The other 34 were ‘false positives’, including lorries, construction vehicles or buses, and six sirens from emergency vehicles.
The report found 43 cars and 24 bikes that activated the camera were “excessively noisy” and would have been liable for a fine if the scheme had been enforced.
Teams sent to check the noise camera’s performance against their own monitoring equipment found it sometimes failed to activate when excessively noisy cars went past, although it did detect a “modified vehicle with noticeable pops and bangs” during their visit to Barrs Court.
The study also found it was not always obvious which vehicle activated the noise camera, with one example on the A4174 where an “excessively noisy motorcycle” activated the system but the ANPR camera recorded the number plate of a car in another lane.
In a written answer to a question from Lib Dem MP Daisy Cooper, who asked if councils would be allowed to roll out noise cameras, Minister for the Future of Roads Lilian Greenwood said: “Overall, the trials demonstrated that noise cameras currently have the potential to be used for enforcement, but only when accompanied by human review of the recorded evidence, which is likely to lower the cost effectiveness of deploying the technology in many circumstances.
“It is ultimately for local authorities and the police to consider what the most appropriate enforcement routes may be for addressing issues with excessive vehicle noise within their area.”
A South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson said: “We have no plans to introduce these cameras at the present time.”