July/Aug 2005

People in the bus industry will be familiar with the idea of having closed-circuit television installed in vehicles - helping to counter anything from vandalism to violence against staff.

Now a manufacturer in this field, Onboard cctv, is offering its Stinger system for trucks, and suggests that real-time streaming of images back to base via GPRS connection could be an option. The images are also stored on board in DVD quality on a 160GB digital recorder.

In the truck market the system would be more likely to be monitoring the outside of the vehicle, not the inside. A natural subject would be a vehicles carrying very high-value loads, but the company also sees attractions in more mundane situations such as providing evidence vindicating the driver in the event of an accident. It supports this with 'black box' functionality that stores detailed data in the event of an accident.

Whilst it might seem a long way from going mainstream, there could be attractions for certain types of operation. A complete system costs around £1,200, including three cameras, wiring and connectors. A fourth camera adds £100.