POLICE in Bulawayo will soon have iron-clad cases against
traffic offenders at traffic lights as the city council has started rolling out
a camera surveillance project on the city’s major roads.
The local authority has already installed the cameras along
Leopold Takawira Avenue and Samuel Parirenyatwa Street as a trial run before
they install the technology around the city.
Bulawayo City Council spokesperson, Miss Bongiwe Ngwenya,
yesterday said the trial cameras were a precursor to the installation of the
gadgets on major roads in Bulawayo.
“The City of Bulawayo has installed a demonstration traffic
camera unit along Leopold Takawira Avenue and Samuel Parirenyatwa Street. The
traffic camera was installed on Tuesday 23 October and will be removed after
five days.
“The camera will be checking a number of aspects which
include the speed at which vehicles are travelling at robots or traffic
violations, conduct traffic count by recording vehicles passing through and
record the areas surrounding the traffic installation,” said Miss Ngwenya.
She said after the elapse of the five day trial period, the
BCC would assess the efficiency of the system before rolling it out to the rest
of the city.
“Traffic cameras present a number of benefits for the city
of Bulawayo which include identification of traffic offenders, assisting in the
investigation of people who hit traffic lights or street poles and also assist
the city in traffic planning through traffic counts.
“Following the removal of the traffic camera, the City of
Bulawayo will make an assessment from the report presented and map a way
forward,” said Miss Ngwenya.
The move by the local authority comes at a time when the
Government has also announced that it will soon be using modern surveillance
equipment, including high-tech drones and helicopters, to enhance police
operations and modernise crime detection, prevention and investigative
capacities.
Police are also in the process of rolling out an Electronic
Traffic Management System (ETMS) following extensive piloting at various
stations around the country.
ETMS is an IT system that guarantees seamless data capture
and communications between various Government departments.
E-ticketing, speed traps and breathalysers will be deployed
on roads as part of the new system.
“One of the areas we are looking at is the chaos on our
streets. If you look at the traffic chaos in our cities, particularly Harare,
ZRP needs to be aware of what is happening on each street. The ZRP needs
helicopters and drones.
“We are saying the ZRP needs helicopters, they need drones;
we can’t have a police force that does not have helicopters. Also all our
streets need CCTV monitoring; there is no street in London where you are not
watched on CCTV and we want to have such a system. We are working on a
programme to install CCTV on all our roads, even on the roads blocks, we want
to see them on CCTV,” Home Affairs and Culture Minister Cain Mathema is quoted as
saying. Chromicle
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