Fines registered by four new additions to the island’s traffic camera network will be enforced from 6 June, as the grace period ends.
Traffic cameras at four fixed points in Nicosia and Limassol will begin registering motoring offences.
Two sets of cameras will be live at the following points in Nicosia:
Makarios Avenue at its junction with Spyros Kyprianou Avenue and Digheni Akritas.
Strovolos Avenue at the junction with Macheras Street.
In Limassol, the following junctions will be controlled by fixed traffic cameras:
Makariou Avenue at the intersection with Nikos Pattichis Avenue.
Archbishop Makarios Avenue at the intersection with Ayia Zoni Avenue.
With the latest additions, the number of fixed cameras rises to 24, while another 12 mobile cameras are already in action.
Based on the contract given to US operators Conduent State & Local Solutions, the latest additions complete the first phase of the traffic camera network.
Moving on to the second phase, by the end of the year, the contracting company should have installed and delivered another 66 cameras in fixed points covering all cities except Famagusta, which only gets mobile units.
Once the €34 mln system is fully operational, there will be 90 fixed units in 30 locations and 20 mobile cameras.
Changes
Meanwhile, some of the original points chosen for installing fixed cameras have changed due to road network changes or re-evaluation.
Plans to install cameras at the entrance of the capital, at the Kalispera junction, have been scrapped as the Department of Public Works plans to create a large junction elsewhere.
Also, cameras will not be placed on the Iosif Hadjiiosif Avenue junction with Constantinopoleos Avenue by the Water Board due to technical problems.
The traffic camera network has registered over 180,000 fines for road violations since the system came online last year, police said.
According to police, 160,000 violations were reported in 2022, with authorities estimating that traffic cams have spotted a minimum of 20,000 offences in the first four months of the year.
Traffic cameras were first introduced 14 years ago, but technical and legal issues over the ownership of the platform and collection of fines forced the government to switch them off.
Cyprus has adopted the European target of a 50% reduction in road fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.
Cameras record traffic light and speed limit violations, plus secondary offences such as not wearing a seatbelt or crash helmet and talking on the phone while driving.
Authorities are working on improving the delivery system, looking to introduce notifications via SMS instead of only via the mail.
Another prepared bill aims to criminalise efforts to obstruct mobile cameras, as operators face an issue with motorists parking their vehicles behind the van carrying the camera, blocking detection.
