More technology coming to catch errant drivers

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

With mo­torists and com­muters in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed by large-scale traf­fic en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es dur­ing peak hours, Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke has re­vealed plans to au­to­mate traf­fic en­force­ment us­ing cam­era-based sys­tems de­signed to catch law-break­ing dri­vers.

The an­nounce­ment comes amid a surge in road traf­fic fines and in­ten­si­fied po­lice op­er­a­tions, which have sparked pub­lic de­bate over the tim­ing and sever­i­ty of en­force­ment. Clarke made the dis­clo­sure be­fore the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture, which is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tems. Com­mit­tee mem­bers pressed him on whether tech­nol­o­gy could re­duce road­side checks and al­low fines to be is­sued di­rect­ly to of­fend­ers.

Clarke said au­toma­tion would re­ly on com­pre­hen­sive ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tion da­ta, in­clud­ing dri­ver iden­ti­ties, ad­dress­es, and au­tho­rised ve­hi­cle class­es. He con­firmed that the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion’s records are ful­ly digi­tised and ready for in­te­gra­tion with cam­era sys­tems.

“That means with tech­nol­o­gy and a prop­er ve­hi­cle de­tec­tion sys­tem, we can have cam­eras that check whether a ve­hi­cle has been in­spect­ed. We can ver­i­fy ve­hi­cle type, make, and mod­el from a sim­ple im­age,” Clarke ex­plained. “We are ready to work with sys­tems that can en­force both speed and red light vi­o­la­tions.”

He added that the ten­der­ing process is com­plete, and the project is now with the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion’s le­gal de­part­ment for rat­i­fi­ca­tion. Im­ple­men­ta­tion is ex­pect­ed to take eight to 12 months.

Com­mit­tee vice chair­man David Lee raised con­cerns about en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es dur­ing peak hours, par­tic­u­lar­ly around school re­open­ing, which can wors­en con­ges­tion. Clarke not­ed that li­cens­ing of­fi­cers rarely op­er­ate alone and usu­al­ly work at the re­quest of the Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). While he can­not can­cel po­lice-led ex­er­cis­es, he said he would ad­vise of­fi­cers when op­er­a­tions are like­ly to se­vere­ly dis­rupt traf­fic.

ACP Bri­an Sood­een high­light­ed the chal­lenges of peak-hour en­force­ment, cit­ing il­le­gal shoul­der dri­ving as a ma­jor risk. He said the TTPS could re­view peak-hour poli­cies and dis­cuss ad­just­ments at the ex­ec­u­tive lev­el.

Ef­forts are al­so un­der­way to ex­pand the de­ploy­ment of traf­fic war­dens in school zones and ur­ban cen­tres. Chief Traf­fic War­den Neville Sankar said dai­ly and week­ly re­quests of­ten ex­ceed ca­pac­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly from schools. Staffing has fall­en from 531 to 232 of­fi­cers due to trans­fers to the TTPS, Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, and Tran­sit Po­lice.

The re­main­ing war­dens cov­er schools and ma­jor thor­ough­fares, in­clud­ing Port of Spain Light­house, In­de­pen­dence Square, Wright­son Road, the Tarou­ba Link Road, and ar­eas out­side Price Plaza, Ch­agua­nas. Sankar not­ed that an ad­di­tion­al 325 of­fi­cers are need­ed to im­ple­ment a two-shift sys­tem and pro­vide week­end cov­er­age.

“A to­tal of 325 added to our cur­rent staff will al­low us to ro­tate shifts, have rest days, and ex­tend cov­er­age to Sat­ur­days and Sun­days to meet pub­lic de­mand,” Sankar said.

Lee al­so ques­tioned ac­ci­dent-re­sponse pro­to­cols on ma­jor high­ways, cit­ing com­plaints of pro­longed traf­fic pile-ups even af­ter mi­nor col­li­sions. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Lin­coln Daly said po­lice pri­ori­tise re­sponse and dis­patch pa­trol ve­hi­cles where pos­si­ble, though some in­ci­dents re­quire wreck­ers. Con­ges­tion is of­ten ex­ac­er­bat­ed by traf­fic vol­ume and “macro traf­fic” con­di­tions.

Of­fi­cials ac­knowl­edged that de­spite in­cre­men­tal in­vest­ments in tech­nol­o­gy and man­pow­er, con­ges­tion re­mains a sys­temic prob­lem re­quir­ing co­or­di­nat­ed re­form across agen­cies. Chief Traf­fic En­gi­neer Adande Pig­gott not­ed that tools such as drones and video de­tec­tion cam­eras have been de­ployed, but gaps re­main in re­al-time com­mu­ni­ca­tion with mo­torists.

“The gov­ern­ment needs to in­vest in vari­able mes­sage signs to in­di­cate al­ter­nate routes. Ef­fec­tive con­ges­tion man­age­ment re­quires ac­tive, live, dy­nam­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion dur­ing road in­ci­dents,” Pig­gott said. He added that while the min­istry op­er­ates two drones, eight to 12 would be need­ed for com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age, and their cur­rent role is da­ta col­lec­tion rather than live mon­i­tor­ing.