{"id":547926,"date":"2006-02-06T15:01:02","date_gmt":"2006-02-06T15:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/547926-thieves-hit-traffic-monitoring-pilot.html"},"modified":"2006-02-06T15:01:02","modified_gmt":"2006-02-06T15:01:02","slug":"thieves-hit-traffic-monitoring-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/547926-thieves-hit-traffic-monitoring-pilot.html","title":{"rendered":"Thieves hit traffic monitoring pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project manager Alex van Niekerk reveals that the R28 million project has been hit by thieves several times since the deployment of the fibre optic backbone for 70 closed-circuit television cameras. The cameras are to be installed between the Shell Ultra City, on the N1 freeway, and New Road, in Midrand, on the South-bound side of the N1. <\/font><\/p>\n

Van Niekerk says thieves targeting electrical copper cables "unintentionally" stole the optic fibre cable out of manholes at the side of the freeway. <\/font><\/p>\n

"They [the thieves] open the manhole covers and see cable, which they then steal. Along with the copper cables they also pull out the optic fibre, but it’s useless to them," he explains. <\/font><\/p>\n

He says the fibre optic cable was usually either removed from the site or simply left there when the thieves realised it had no value. <\/font><\/p>\n

Security guards<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

As a result, Van Niekerk says, the contractor carrying out the work for the project was forced to deploy security guards in the area who now patrol the stretch of freeway on an ongoing basis. Sanral did not have to carry the costs for replacing the stolen and damaged fibre optic network, as this responsibility lies with the contractor, he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

"According to the agreement between Sanral and the contractor, the contractor is expected to deliver a complete and working product, so the thefts did not affect us directly." <\/font><\/p>\n

The R28 million project has been hit by thieves several times. <\/font><\/p>\n

He adds that future monitoring of the infrastructure would be carried out via camera, once these are in place. <\/font><\/p>\n

Van Niekerk denies that the thefts would affect the project’s delivery time, saying the pilot is expected to go live later this month. <\/font><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the closing date for the multimillion-rand tender for software development for the project has been pushed back by two weeks, to 21 February, upon request from bidders, Van Niekerk states. <\/font><\/p>\n

Traffic alerts<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

The vehicle monitoring initiative is aimed at gathering information regarding traffic problems, trends and conditions. This will be communicated to emergency services and disseminated to the public, warning motorists about potential traffic issues along a particular route. <\/font><\/p>\n

Following the completion of the pilot, the project is expected to be officially launched in March. Information gathered will be distributed via a website, SMS, radio reports and variable electronic signs along the road. <\/font><\/p>\n

Sanral is also testing the feasibility of the electronic vehicle identification component of the project, which relies on 915MHz radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to gather information about vehicles travelling along the Ben Schoeman. <\/font><\/p>\n

Van Niekerk says tag readers have been installed along the highway between John Vorster Drive and the Buccleuch interchange, and 1000 tags have, so far, been handed out to volunteers participating in the study. <\/font><\/p>\n

These tags are installed in vehicles whose movements are then recorded by RFID and optical devices installed along the highway. This will allow Sanral to monitor traffic movement and gather information about travelling time and speed. <\/font><\/p>\n

INet-Bridge<\/i> ||\u00a0 <\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite being plagued by the theft of its fibre optic infrastructure, the traffic monitoring project between Johannesburg and Pretoria is still on track, says the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}