009048 - Back Office Traffic Management System

Please submit a response on the OPEN portal www.open-uk.org ↗ (reference 009048 - Back Office Traffic Management System)

Project # OPEN2025726

Preliminary Market Engagement Notice (UK2)

Invitation to Suppliers for ANPR Back-Office System

Purpose: Developing procurement requirements and approach

Introduction: We are seeking expressions of interest from suppliers who can fulfil our requirements for an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) back-office system. This system will be used to derive journey times and car park occupancy. We aim to engage with suppliers to understand the capabilities available in the market and to develop our procurement requirements and approach.

Background: The Tyne and Wear UTMC facility operates a large network of ANPR cameras on behalf of the North East Combined Authority (NECA). As of April 2025, the ANPR back-office system:

• Accepts data from over 478 ANPR cameras.
• Calculates travel times for over 466 Journey Time Links.
• Calculates occupancy for over 21 Car Parks & Park and Ride locations.

Data for camera faults, journey time links, and car park occupancy are outputted on a user interface and to the UTMC Common Database to help alert staff of faults, inform users of live travel times, change traffic signal timings, and set variable message signs. The data transfer is currently sent to UTMC via outdated CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) adapters.

Several reporting tools in the back-office system are used by the UTMC and Car Parking Services teams, for example, to determine when a vehicle entered/exited a car park including duration of stay.

The current network of ANPR cameras communicates to the back-office over:

• 2.5G (GPRS)
• 4G (LTE/LTE Advanced)
• 5G (NR-SA/NR-NSA)

Communications are via a private APN using fixed IP addresses from Mobius Vodafone/Telenor or via Northumbria Police O2 contract. All data sent to the server conforms to standard UTMC protocols for ANPR data objects.

The current ANPR back-office system, Cortex, was developed and installed in 2013 and is hosted at Northumbria Police on behalf of UTMC. While Cortex is still functional, it no longer supports the required functions, several features have ceased to function correctly, and it does not conform to the latest web security standards due to the supplier ceasing trading.

UTMC is looking to procure a next-generation ANPR back-office system that provides the same current functionality, but with the following improvements:

• A secure, maintainable, and supported system conforming to the latest software and security standards.
• Re-enable functions which have ceased working.
• Added functionality and flexibility to support additional cameras, car parks, and journey time links.
• Potential for future development of the system such as a detailed Origin and Destination reporting platform.

The preferred hosting location for the ANPR back-office system is on servers at a Northumbria Police facility on behalf of the UTMC. The servers and software must be able to cope with existing and future demands as the system expands and keep up to date with current and evolving data security requirements. The supplier would be required to provide maintenance and support of the back-office system.

Purpose and Intended Outcomes: The purpose of this engagement is to:

• Gather information on available solutions and technologies.
• Understand supplier capabilities and innovations.
• Develop a robust procurement strategy that meets our needs.
• Ensure compliance with sections 16 and 12 of the Act.

Engagement Process: We invite suppliers to participate in this preliminary market engagement by providing detailed information on how their solutions can meet our requirements. The engagement will be conducted through a series of activities, including:

1. Digital Webinar for SMEs:

• Date: [TBC]
• Time: [TBC]
• Platform: Microsoft Teams
• Purpose: To provide Suppliers with an opportunity to present their solutions and engage in discussions.

2. Submission of Information:

• Suppliers are requested to submit detailed information on their solutions, including technical specifications and case studies.
• Deadline for submissions: [16/05/2025]

Selection Criteria: To ensure compliance with sections 16 and 12 of the Act, the selection of suppliers to participate in further engagement activities will be based on the following criteria:

• Relevance and Suitability of the Solution to Our Requirements: Please send a response (1000 word limit) outlining how well your solution meets our needs stated above, including hosting, maintenance, support, experience and expertise in ANPR systems, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
• Your response will be evaluated against the below evaluation criteria and the top 3 suppliers will be invited to participate in further discussion.

"Score - Classification

100 - Exceptional response in all areas

90 - Exceptional response with some minor shortcomings, or very good response with some exceptional elements

80 - Very good response in all areas

70 - Very good response with some minor shortcomings, or good response with very good elements

60 - Good response in all areas

50 - Good response with some minor shortcomings, or acceptable response with good elements

40 - Acceptable response in all areas

30 - Acceptable response with some minor shortcomings, or poor response with some acceptable elements

20 - Poor response in all areas

10 - Very poor response that is significantly below expectations in all areas

0 - No response, or inappropriate response in all areas"

Next Steps: Selected suppliers will be invited to participate in further discussion. This will include detailed requirements gathering and solution demonstrations.

Contact Information: For any queries or to express interest in participating, please contact:

• Name: James Wood
• Email: [email protected]

We look forward to your participation and insights to help us develop a comprehensive procurement strategy for our ANPR back-office system.

Please submit a response on the OPEN portal www.open-uk.org ↗ (reference 009048 - Back Office Traffic Management System)

Project # OPEN2025726