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Until today there was only one school term calendar used in the Speed and Camera Alerts web app, and that was for Victoria, which is the state I live in and what I designed it for. However the Speed and Camera Alerts web app now covers all of mainland Australian and Tasmania. Recently I've extended the Speed Camera Locations site to also cover New Zealand. I've updated the Speed and Camera Alerts to now use a local school terms for each area covered. First I have to say it isn't perfect. There's a lot of variations in school terms, and there's even variations within NSW with a western and eastern region. Because that meant to much time making changes to my program and I only have limited hours, I've focused on priorities to mean Speed and Camera Alerts covers the largest areas correctly, so it does meant there will some false notification in some areas for a short period of time. As an example for NSW, I've used the Eastern school terms. Since the western districts start later, drivers in that area will get alerts in school zones where the school term has not already started. I have to admit I was also quite shocked to see that generally the school speed limits are active often for a number of days at the start of terms when there's no students at school because these are professional development days. There's no risk to students and yet drivers get fined. Teachers are adults and don't need the school speed limits activated whilst only they are there and there's no students. For simplicity, I don't mind if there's professional development days during the term, but some schools may have 5-10 days a year at the start of terms when there's no students at school and drivers are being fined when there's virtually no risk to students. Having said that, the school terms include the professional development days as generally that's what the governments include for school zone speed limits. I can't be sure this applies across all states/territories and countries, so this is a simplification that may result in false alerts. Always observe the speed limit restrictions present when you drive through school zones and ignore any false alerts. In general, Speed and Camera Alerts uses the longest school term periods. For example some states have college level students (year 11/12) that start a week before earlier level students. Some states have professional development days at the start of each term. Some states have teachers finishing a day after students. Whilst I've not seen this anywhere, I read that some schools may apply/activate the speed limits out of the normal hours for such things as sports days, where there may be an increase in students using nearby streets. This ad hoc usage of speed limits is not covered by the Speed and Camera Alerts web app, simply because it's not possible as I don't have access to that level of data. - Kelvin |
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