The Western Extension zone (WEZ) of the Central London Congestion Charging Scheme, UK, went live on 19 February 2007 and is helping to pave the way for London's Low Emission Zone (LEZ). The extension covers the London Boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Monitoring by Transport for London (TfL) showed that traffic in the WEZ was reduced by 13% in March 2007. Siemens Traffic gained the contract to install the system and run it until 2016. WEZ deploys 693 automatic number plate recognition cameras supplied by PIPS Technology. Pairs of cameras are linked at the site to ANPR digital imaging, data storage and encryption modules. Records of every passing vehicle are sent via an SDSL connection to a WEZ installation. The same system will be used in the LEZ scheme. The LEZ will cover the whole of the Greater London area and will operate at all times of the day every day. The aim is to improve air quality by discouraging the oldest lorries, buses, coaches and minibuses from driving in the capital. TfL has outlined proposals for maintaining its own database of compliant and noncompliant vehicles in the UK using existing data from external sources. The overall standards will initially be set by reference to PM10 only.
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