French engineering services firm Egis has signed a major contract to set up and operate an end-to-end service for Greater Manchester’s clean air zone programme for the next five-and-a-half years.
The Egis-led team will comprise supply-chain partners Yunex Traffic and Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions.
Renaud Béziade, CEO, project structuring, operation and new services, Egis, said: “We are extremely pleased to have been awarded this contract as it is at the heart of our strategy to become a leading name in smart and sustainable infrastructure that can contribute to tackling climate change and ultimately improving people’s living environments.
“In addition, this contract is aligned to our overall vision for the digitalisation and environmental transition of city services.”
As previously reported by CiTTi, Greater Manchester’s CAZ is set to launch on 30 May 2022 and will operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It will be enforced by a network of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, manufactured and supplied by Yunex Traffic from within the UK.
Vehicles liable to pay the charge will pay using the UK government’s online portal with discounts and exemptions available for some vehicle types.
The aim of the Greater Manchester CAZ is to secure compliance with nitrogen dioxide (NO2) legal limits on local roads in the shortest possible time, and by 2024 at the latest, by: reducing the use of non-compliant high emitting vehicles; changing the behaviour of users of the transport network; and encouraging those that have to travel by road to upgrade to cleaner vehicles.
As part of this project, Egis will be responsible for the successful installation and delivery of the following key aspects of the service, including the installation and maintenance of close to 900 ANPR cameras, a public-facing CAZ office to handle payments, discounts, exemptions and financial reconciliation along with any penalty charge notices issued to non-payers of the charge.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is delivering the CAZ project on behalf of the 10 Greater Manchester local authorities. Greater Manchester has been instructed by government to introduce a Category C charging CAZ, which includes non-compliant buses and coaches, heavy goods vehicles, light goods vehicles or vans, minibuses, taxis and private hire vehicles.
The project implementation phase will begin from July 2021 with an implementation period through to the end of January 2022. An extensive trial and testing period will the run over four months between February and May 2022, ahead of the CAZ’s anticipated launch at the end of May 2022.
The initial five-and-a-half-year contract period comes with a possible extension for a further three years.
