Harare City Council has started installing new surveillance
cameras at traffic lights in the city centre to rein in traffic offenders and
thus reduce congestion, although the cameras installed almost six years ago at
two intersections have failed to make an impact.
The cameras are designed to “capture” motorists who impede
the smooth flow of traffic. It is envisaged that the cameras will assist police
in identifying criminals in the city centre.
In 2014, council installed CCTV cameras at the intersection
of Julius Nyerere Way and Jason Moyo Avenue, which have since been removed.
Four years later, Harare City and its parking unit, City
Parking, embarked on another $2 million camera installation programme whose
operation remains a mystery.
The local authority wanted to install monitoring and
enforcement cameras at all intersections and along all routes to detect traffic
violations.
Recently, Harare City Council said surveillance cameras
were being installed as a pilot project at the corner of Jason Moyo Avenue and
Simon Vengayi Muzenda Street, a busy intersection next to a the bus terminus
with a three-way sequence of light changes.
Our news crew visited the site and noted that the new
cameras had already been installed.
Harare City Council spokesperson Mr Michael Chideme said
the earlier surveillance cameras installed at the corner of Julius Nyerere Way
and Jason Moyo Avenue had been removed, but would not say why.
Once the installation of the monitoring and enforcement cameras
is completed, controllers will ticket offenders from the comfort of their
monitoring rooms.
Harare City intends to link the new system with Zinara and
the Central Vehicle Registry so that they can follow up on the issued tickets
for violating traffic regulations.
The installation of street cameras has largely been
successful in developed countries, while they have also worked in other
developing nations. South Africa has decentralised from the city centre by
installing cameras in Johannesburg suburbs.
The cameras have an impressive high-tech licence plate
recognition feature that scans the plates of about 480 passing vehicles per
minute. Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment