MOSCOW, September 20 (Itar-Tass) —— The number of video cameras on roads in Moscow will be increased significantly in the near future, the city’s chief traffic inspector Alexander Ilyin said.
“Since the start of the year 2.250 million traffic violation tickets have been issued, and slightly over 1,000 complaints have been registered,” he said.
There are 185 video cameras in the streets of Moscow now but they have already helped reduce the number of road accidents with injuries by 12 percent. Besides, public transport has started moving faster by 30 percent on dedicated bus lanes after video cameras were installed there to prevent their use by private cars.
Ilyin said the number of cameras would increase to 600 by the end of this year and to 800 in 2013. “This is not the final figure. By the middle of next year we will see whether more are needed or not. There is no such need for the time being,” he said.
Deputy Moscow Mayor Nikolai Lyamov confirmed earlier that the number of video cameras registering traffic violations would quadruple in the city to 600 by the end of this year.
“I think there will be about 600 such cameras by the end of the year,” Lyamov said. He added that the city authorities would also renovate the situation centre that processes data from the cameras.
The situation centre started operating at full capacity in late February of this year. Cameras are a part of the intellectual transport system that should become fully operational in 2013. Its creation began last year. The system will include road safety, traffic regulation and notification of drivers about the situation on the roads.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said earlier that the intellectual transport system would be actively developed in the city in 2012 and 2013. The biggest part of the equipment is to be installed this year so that the system could be commissioned in 2013.
The system will help ease traffic in the city, ensure road safety and inform the drivers, the Mayor's Office said.
The Moscow city authorities will install 800 cameras by 2014 for automatic registration of traffic violations on the road.
The cameras will not only register traffic violations but also monitor the situation in the streets online and watch out for law offences.
Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev said earlier that such systems have proved effective and will be actively used in the city.
“This work will proceed in three stages. We plan to install 150 photo and video cameras in the city this year. They will monitor 600 places, with all information to be stored and archived. Twenty-six such systems have already been installed,” he said.
The number of cameras will be increased to 400 next year and to 800 by 2014 to cover almost 2,400 places.
Video cameras in Moscow registered dozens of thousands of traffic rules violations in 2008, 2009 and 2010, allowing police to impose millions of roubles worth of fines on defaulting drivers.
Video cameras in the Moscow region are installed mainly in the places where a large number of accidents occur. Russian authorities plan provided 167 million roubles for video monitoring on the roads in 2009.
The money was used to buy equipment and create a single video data processing centre.
Since July 1, 2008, traffic rules violations recoded by video cameras installed on major roads have been regarded as official proof of offence.