Expanded provision of School Streets schemes across the UK could see fleets facing increased admin and risk of fines, according to Lightfoot.
The UK Government has recently published guidance to help local authorities launch more of the schemes, which ban vehicles from certain roads at the times of the day children are going to and from school.
Lightfoot client services director Ben Bax said that, while the fleet technology company supported the schemes, they posed significant challenges for businesses and drivers.
He said: Businesses operating in cities such as London have had to plan to avoid entering School Streets at certain times of day, or risk £130 fines each time for doing so, for some time, and in 2022 alone reports claimed that over 400,000 drivers were hit with fines in the capital.
“There are around 700 School Streets in London and a further 200 in the rest of the UK.
So the potential scale of the issue as this expands across the country, with more than 300 separate councils able to implement these schemes, is quite clear.
“Without doubt, the areas around schools should be made safer and less polluting, and School Streets have been proven to help achieve this. But as the data from some local authorities operating them shows, there are still thousands of vehicles getting caught by cameras in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Now the government is keen to bring in more of these schemes across the country, thousands more businesses will find they need to plan how to avoid them.”
Bax said that with the schemes administered locally, there was no official central resource available with their locations.
He said: “The administration challenge, to ensure drivers don’t enter the streets in the first place, and then to manage fines if they do, could be vast.
“Equally, it is down to each local authority to devise their own exemptions. These could range from specific vehicle registrations for homes or businesses in the street, up to any delivery driver or tradesperson.
“For regional or national businesses with fleets on the road, this could be a nightmare to manage.”
Where a School Street is in place already and is known to the customer, Lightfoot can set up locations to send alerts to the fleet managers if a vehicle enters the restricted road, to help manage compliance and drive down fines.
It can also provide reports to customers, giving them data of which vehicles are entering a School Street on a regular basis, and can provide data and times of vehicle locations that could help to dispute any erroneous fines.
