Johannesburg - The City of Cape Town is installing high-tech CCTV cameras to keep an eye on its transport facilities in a move to boost the safety of commuters and operators.
The City’s Transport Directorate at the weekend said it was installing the cameras at various public transport interchanges (PTIs) and MyCiTi stations across Cape Town.
"The first PTIs to benefit from the roll-out are Claremont, Wynberg, Cape Town Station Deck, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and Bellville," said the City in a statement, adding the investment in the cameras at nine of the City’s minibus-taxi ranks amounts to R11,4 million.
"We’ll be installing 159 CCTV cameras at nine minibus-taxi ranks. In fact, 54 CCTV cameras have already been installed at the public transport facilities in Wynberg, Claremont, and the Cape Town Station Deck," said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Alderman Felicity Purchase.
"The CCTV camera project will boost the safety of our commuters and operators in the various communities where the PTIs and the MyCiTi stations are located. The cameras will also provide a technological advantage for safety and law enforcement purposes."
Purchase said the footage from the cameras will be viewed in real time, as well as once it has been recorded. The data that is captured will be made available as needed for prosecution purposes.
"Apart from the safety aspect, the cameras also boast technology that will provide the Transport Directorate with information about the lengths of queues and waiting times at the PTIs with lane-designated destinations, commuter counting, and Internet-of-Things (IOT) sensors to provide traffic data," said Purchase.
She said cameras will also be installed along the MyCiTi N2 Express route serving Khayelitsha along Mew Way and Mfundisweni Street, Lookout Hill, Spine and Ntlazane Roads and Govan Mbeki Road up to Kuyasa.
The number of CCTV cameras to be installed at each PTI will be determined by the number of commuters and operators making use of the facility as well as the physical layout.
"We’re are currently connecting the on-site CCTV cameras to the Transport Management Centre (TMC) via optic fibre to enable 24/7 monitoring of these cameras," said Purchase.
"Thus, when the TMC detects an incident at or nearby a PTI they can immediately request for the appropriate response services via the various law enforcement agencies.
"Where access control is specified, we are also installing license plate recognition cameras along with the Radio Frequency Identification readers ... at the booms, as part of the access control solution."