Cape Town - The next time you drive through the city’s main arterial routes recklessly or under the influence, you could meet the City’s new highway patrol unit that has been deployed to respond to traffic incidents and public safety.
With the festive season approaching and an expected increase in reckless driving behaviour and attacks on drivers, the City has launched the technology-led highway patrol unit to increase visibility on all major arterial routes around the metropole.
Equipped with Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) dash cameras, the unit would be patrolling on a 24-hour basis, conducting enforcement and assisting motorists.
The patrol unit, according to safety and security Mayco member JP Smith, was conceived in 2019 after the need for increased traffic patrol night-time presence was recognised.
Smith said the City wanted a highway patrol to have significant 24-hour resources on highways and roads where high-speed enforcement was an issue and where many serious accidents were taking place.
“The budget became available in March this year. Since then, we’ve been working on training the staff, getting the vehicles, organising the ANPR in the vehicles that scans surrounding vehicles so that we can check for duplicate vehicles, and outstanding warrants.
“Vehicles are linked directly to the control room that manages the Freeway Management Systems. We have fairly ubiquitous surveillance on all our major roads and these vehicles are linked directly to them,” he said.
Smith said with this roll-out, lives would be saved this festive season, helping bring down road carnage.
City’s acting chief traffic officer, André Nel, said this was the first “24-hour serving service”.
Nel said initially the traffic officers would conduct operations through the early hours, but with this roll-out, they would always be available.
“If you have an accident or a hijacking incident, especially in the early hours of the morning, the response time is important.
“This technology which comes with the vehicles would give us the capability to not only react to those incidents quickly, but also enable us to understand the hot spots and patterns.
“So this is not only a traffic enforcement initiative but also to ensure the safety of people,” Nel said.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the activation of this unit was well-timed for the festive season, which requires all hands on deck to ensure a safe and happy time for residents and visitors alike.
