The Garda has circulated its long-awaited request for tenders to supply and operate 100 new speed cameras. Tim O'Brienreports.
The cameras are to be concentrated on rural or regional roads. Some 60 per cent of fatal crashes and 75 per cent of collisions resulting in serious injury occur on such roads.
A private company will operate the system, including the processing of fines, but all decisions on where the cameras are sited will be taken by senior gardaí.
The tender documentation sent to six previously-selected operators late last week does not, however, specify the number or type of cameras required. Instead the Garda has asked for equipment and monitoring services for up to 6,000 hours coverage per month.
In this way speed cameras at diverse locations will be allocated operational hours as required. Motorists will not know if a speed camera is operational.
The tender documentation leaves it to the bidding companies to design the camera and back-office systems required.
However, industry sources said yesterday that the requirements of the tender would appear to indicate that a radar-based system was the desired option.
Radar-based detection systems were criticised in a report last year by the Comptroller and Auditor General, which highlighted the high number of unusable photographs from fixed speed cameras.
According to this report, in 2005 some 49 per cent of the 108,331 images taken of speeding cars were unusable. The problems with the system were first identified in 2002.
However, the Garda documents call for a system which can detect the speed of a vehicle as it approaches or is moving away from the detection equipment.
The documents also specify that the system should be able to tell the length of a vehicle, important in detecting lorries which are required to travel at lower speeds.
While there are some in- ground systems which could meet that specification, the tender documents also specify that roads or lanes may not be closed for maintenance of the system.
This limits the equipment to a roadside, radar-based system, according to sources.
While laser-based systems can identify a vehicle among a group of vehicles with pinpoint accuracy, they cannot detect the length of a vehicle.
The documentation is explicit on its insistence that evidence must be protected and able to withstand challenges in court.
The date for the submission of completed tenders is July 25th and the cameras are expected to be deployed early next year.
In addition to the new privatised cameras, the Garda is to buy more than 100 mobile speed cameras for deployment this year.
A new road safety strategy is also to be launched by Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey early next month.