Five bidders from Cyprus, Europe and the U.S. have submitted final tenders for the installation and operation by the end of 2020 the much-delayed traffic and speed camera system, suspended since 2007, with all offers near or below the government’s initial value of €35.2 mln.
The five finalists are Poland’s PolCam Systems Sp. z o.o. (€26,999,997), Cypriot Logicom Solutions Ltd (€34,785,078), Austria’s Avonside Holdings GmbH (€32,748,880), French Egis Projects (€36,335,001.11), and US-based Conduent State and Local Solutions Inc (€34,076,970).
The final bidders for tender 19.072.ΗΜΥ (Design, Installation, Operation and Maintenance of a Traffic Law Enforcement Camera System in the Republic of Cyprus) were submitted to the Ministry of Transport and Communication’s Electro-Mechanical Services (HMY) in July 2019, with revisions allowed from September 2019 to January 20 of this year. They were opened on Monday.
The tender is for 90 fixed cameras to monitor red light and stop sign violations, as well as for speeding, with a further 20 mobile units to be deployed by the police during specific campaigns or in rural areas.
The initial value of the tender was €43.2 mln plus VAT for the five-year contract, with an option to renew for a further two years.
Last July, the government announced that 12 years since dismantling its national traffic camera network due to a series of technical and legal hiccups, it called for tenders to reintroduce them.
Then-Transport Minister said that the process would run smoothly and that within the three-month deadline provided under the law, the state would be in the position to sign the agreement to install the system.
Vassiliki Anastassiadou had pointed out at the time that improving road safety would not only be achieved by installing the traffic cameras but cultivating proper driving behaviour, awareness and culture will also be necessary.
She argued speed cameras would go live with a pilot programme in the first half of 2020, while installation of the fixed traffic cameras was expected to be completed by 2022.
The pilot programme will now be pushed back to the second half of this year.
Traffic cameras were first introduced in 2007 but technical and legal issues over the ownership of the platform and collection of fines forced the government to switch off the system.
Ever since the process has been bogged down in bureaucracy and red tape.
Police and non-governmental watchdog organisations have stressed the necessity of re-introducing the traffic cameras to Cyprus roads as an effective measure to prevent road-related deaths.
Some 50 people lost their lives in road accidents in 2018 and 52 died in 2019.
Moreover, Cyprus has one of the highest ratios in Europe for people killed while riding a motorbike or moped.
In December, the police said that stiffer fines and the introduction of speed cameras within 2020 would go a long way in reducing the death rate.
With the rate of fatalities per population still high, and far from EU targets set in 2010 for member states to halve them by 2020, Cyprus is obliged to reduce road deaths to less than 30 a year.
Cyprus did see a reduction in traffic-related accidents when the speed cameras were operational.
