Pan and tilts and camera housings from Conway Security have been installed on the £1.5bn Oresund bridge link between Sweden and Denmark, the £420m Dublin Port Tunnel and a £200m highway in China, which will stretch as far as Inner Mongolia.
Now, closer to home, the same combination of units is being used as part of major roadworks on the UK's oldest motorway, the M1, in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Reflecting on this range of projects, Chris Newman of Conway, said: "On the Shanxi highway our products are part of a system that give images of carriageways that cross the Yellow River and pass Buddhist temples, hanging gardens from the Ming dynasty and armies of terracotta soldiers. On the M1 our units will take in exits for Luton Airport and Whipsnade Zoo."
The point is that regardless of the innumerable systems available, installers and consultants around the world appreciate the performance and build quality of the Conway range. The installation in the home counties is every bit as important and challenging as the more glamorous projects in the Far East and Scandinavia. It is on one of the UK's major traffic arteries and the task of keeping vehicles moving throughout the works is critical. The Conway equipment plays a major part in this.
The M1 project is a £298m widening scheme between junction's 6a (M25) and 10 (A1081), which is being performed by Balfour Beatty Skanska Joint Venture working on behalf of the Highways Agency. DW Projects is responsible for installing the assemblies, which contain Baxall cameras and Computar 16-1 lenses. There will be 126 cameras in all and the second phase was commissioned in June. The distributor for the surveillance components was Norbain.
The cameras are mounted on dedicated poles and use single mode fibre for communication with a monitoring station at junction 8 (Hemel Hempstead.) Additionally, feeds are sent to a Highways Agency office at the South Mimms service station and monitor outputs are patched to the agency in the event of an incident. The cameras have been installed to ensure rapid dispatch of breakdown vehicles to incidents, so minimizing congestion on this busy stretch.
Frank Gearon of DW Projects, said: "The Conway pan and tilts proved suitable since it was imperative we had a model with pre-sets. Even the most conscientious operative can easily leave a camera looking away from the carriageway and constant monitoring is vital here."
Companies know they can trust products from the Conway range since they have a track record over 20 years. The housings and pan and tilts have been used in some of the most demanding environments in the world.
