Gatso temporary installations.

AndyBB · Lifetime Member Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 11

In the first 3 days of this week I have encountered 5 new gatso installations on roads which are well known to me. These are cameras that have sprung up virtually overnight. Travelling from the south west on the A303 towards London yesterday morning I encountered three of them in a new section of roadworks near the junction with the A36 and in the afternoon on my return they were just completing the painting of the speed marker lines. The other two are covering another new section of roadworks on the M5 near the Gordano services at Bristol ( one north and one south) which looked like new installations on Monday morning.

We all fully appreciate the effort of the Pocket GPS team for the work that goes into updating the database and realise that weekly upates are not practical or really achievable at this time but this new problem of "instant" sites of a "temporary" nature needs some consideration.

Should we consider having a second overlay for "temporary" installations which we run in parallel with the main database due to the dynamic nature of cameras in these types of locations? I am considering running my own system in that way so that it is not affected by any later issues of the main database but would obviously prefer to share and receive data with other users for other areas of travel. As a new member to this website I may not be aware of previous discussions on this topic and I would also like to ask if there any preferred methods for live sharing of locations. Obviously I would prefer not to be the first person that encounters any of them !

icsys · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:30 pm Post subject:

What you are suggesting is good and likely to be a full time task.
It would have to be perhaps weekly and seperate to the main database but such regular updates may be too hard to manage... as you stated, these are temporary sites and only likely to be there for the duration of the road works.

I would suggest that when approaching ANY form of road works where speed has been reduced you should ASSUME there are cameras there and keep to the limits.
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

Dave · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:54 pm Post subject:

I agree with ICSYS.

This would be a full time job, and we couldn't update a camera database that quick, and you wouldn't download a database on a nightly basis that quick.

If everyone wanted to, we could go to a subscription model and implement this and pay several full time salaries to accomplish this, but I doubt anyone would pay a subscription.

Your best bet would be to either make sure you keep to the speed limit (and preferably below it), or purchase a Radar Detector (they are still legal).

Most GPS Gatso Detectors like Road Angel, Morpheous etc are only updated on a weekly basis at best, so these will also fall foul.

Oldie · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:29 pm Post subject:

It would certainly be good to keep any cameras associated with roadworks out of the main database. A number of temporay sites have been removed from the database that has just been created.

Why not send details of temporary camera sites in as usual but identify them as such. It will then give us the chance to assess the magnitude of the task Smile

AndyBB · Lifetime Member Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 11

Thanks for the comments Dave, fortunately I also have the same view on reduced limits in the roadworks etc but using GPS as a second pair of eyes, as I am sure we all do, you start to take it's accuracy as the next challenge. Understand your comments re Road Angel etc and I am already aware of the subscription systems but having been impressed with the level of enthusiasm on this website for the Speed Camera Database I was interested to participate if anyone had any scheme for updating a database on the temporary installations.

drummer · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:55 pm Post subject:

As a compromise, would it make any sense for members to post new camera locations on this forum in addition to submitting them for inclusion in the next database. It would then be up to individual users to add them to their maps if they wished.

When a new database has been released that includes the posted locations, the forum list could be restarted until the next release.

icsys · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:

Skippy · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:06 pm Post subject:

icsys · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:50 pm Post subject:

Its feasable for someone with sufficient sql knowledge and time to write it.

The Database could be populated automatically by filling in pre determined fields but it would still need to be converted to the various file formats for download.
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

Darren · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:08 pm Post subject:

And the problem with automation is accuracy Crying or Very sad

If ten people report the same camera you inevitably get 10 similar although subtly different locations. Which one do you take as the most accurate? If you filter for duplicates at what radius do you assume two cameras are the same and delete one?

There is no easy answer and certainly none that could be provided free of charge. Subscription services verify locations in person before adding to their live databases which is clearly something we cannot offer.
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Darren Griffin

icsys · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 11:41 pm Post subject:

Darren · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 8:10 am Post subject:

We have and are constantly looking at methods of automating some or all of the submission and update processes but until we can identify a method that improves on our current system we won't be changing anytime soon.

Some thoughts we have had are using a system similar to some spam software in which users get rated on the reliability of their submissions, the more accurate repoirts they make the higher their rating and once above a set level their reports are trusted as accurate without requiring further verification.

At the end of the day, whilst it is a popular service it is not our core raison d'etre for running the site and so we can only afford to spend so much time on it.
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Darren Griffin

Dave · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 8:58 am Post subject:

As Darren says, automation is a good way of just getting the database out quickly, but it will then leave you with potentially hundreds or thousands of duplicates if you are not careful.

With a camera database there are only two ways to insure a greater level of accuracy:-

1) manual checks on proximity
2) verifying the camera

Although you may be able to write a program to do 1, we still employ a lot of manual checking to see where cameras sit. You would be surprised at the amount of cameras we have received in the past that don't sit on a road and are off in a field or a lake somewhere. This is mainly down to the sat level you've been receiving when you've hit the button, and the cameras need to be tweaked to the nearest road. There is no way of automating this process.

Beefy · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:06 am Post subject:

Dave · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 12:20 pm Post subject:

...and that includes not speeding off road also ;-)

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