Bulawayo installs first traffic cameras

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.