Even as the government raises taxes and cuts public spending, including upgrading dangerous roads, it continues to allocate generous budgets for the high-speed traffic camera project, known as "Automatic Electronic Enforcement".
"Globes" can reveal the minutes of the Knesset Economic Affairs meeting from late July, which discussed the project, state that NIS 42 million has already been spent on its first stage. The first stage, scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, will have 60 high-speed and traffic lights cameras on 180 poles, 120 of which will be empty, but with the operating infrastructures for switching loaded cameras.
In other words, for every pole with an active traffic camera, there will be two "scarecrows", to deter drives from speeding or running red lights. 44 scarecrows are already in operation.
The one piece of data withheld from the Economics Committee was how many cameras will generate money for the Treasury in tickets. The 12 cameras in operation issued 17,000 tickets in their first four months of operations, generating NIS 8.5 million in fines.
The project, when completed, will reportedly include 150-160 cameras, generating hundreds of millions of shekels in fines a year.
According to government figures, each high-speed camera costs $45,000 (NIS 180,000), and the scarecrow system sounds like a good idea in theory, like any welcome idea that save the state money while achieving deterrence on the roads at low cost. However, the meeting's minutes also state that each scarecrow costs NIS 140,000 - about the same as a new police car.
Figures presented to the Economics Committee by the Israel Police and Ministry of Public Security indicate that the operating cost camera network is NIS 22 million a year, or NIS 400,000 per camera. This figure includes hiring 42 people to maintain the network, ten of whom are current police positions, and the rest are new positions. Each employee is full-time and his or her salary cost will be NIS 120,00-150,000 a year, depending on rank and seniority.
An internal audit of the system's economic feasibility compared with equivalent alternatives was begun recently, even though the review was supposed to have been made long before the system was set up and budgeted.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 13, 2012
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