Road safety: Speed camera system to be reviewed

The Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport is coming up with a full-fledged audit to review the whole speed camera system, said Minister Bodha, in reply to a parliamentary question at the National Assembly.

A complete audit of the system will be carried including the hardware and software, which was devised and designed by the contractor and upon which the Ministry has no control as it is a licensed product. The Terms of Reference are being finalised in consultation with the Central Informatics Bureau, and the tender will be launched by January 2017.

“It is planned to come up with a new system of speed cameras in the light of the findings of the Audit, and one of the possible options would be the introduction of the average zone speed camera system,” said Minister Bodha.

Speaking on the number of speed cameras which are currently operational, Mr. Bodha recalled that from 2013 to 2015, speed cameras have been installed at 55 sites out of which 53 are operational. Two speed cameras installed at Valton and Creve Coeur along Terre Rouge – Verdun Motorway M3 will soon be reactivated, tests are being carried out.

The Minister also outlined the criteria taken into consideration for the location of the speed cameras. The first criterion concerns accident prone areas, which are determined by using an accident analysis package, the MAAP software introduced in year 2000, and where a minimum of five collisions have occurred during the past five years resulting in either death or injury. 80% of the cameras are located in such areas.

The second criterion relates to road safety which takes into account complaints of speeding vehicles by members of the public; safety in school zones; places where there is documented history of crashes; cases of replacement of road humps or yellow mode rails; cases where due to topographical reasons, there exist physical features or road geometry requiring the slowing down of vehicles to maximise road safety; and cases where there are evidence of over speeding causing threat to local inhabitants and pedestrians.

In the last cases, the evidence has to be substantiated by speed surveys based on report from District Officers of the TMRSU and the Police, said Mr Bodha.