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Over 100 vandalised and stolen traffic lights cost Joburg R800 000 every month

Vandalism, theft and car accidents affecting traffic lights cost the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) a total of R880 000 a month.

According to the agency, inoperative traffic lights create nightmarish congestion on the City of Gold’s roads, the main culprit behind them being power supply isues, bad weather, theft, vandalism and accidents.

On average 32 lights are vandalised or stolen a month, costing the JRA R380 000 to fix and R12.7 million over three years, while an average of 81 lights are damaged by accidents, costing R500 000.

To help fight the scourge of theft and vandalism, the JRA said CCTV cameras and remote sensors that can detect tampering with poles or equipment have been installed and alarms alert armed security to apprehend the thieves.

“An Infrastructure Protection Unit has been set up within the JRA to escalate responses,” said Mpho Kau, Acting Managing Director of the JRA.

Additionally, aluminium alloy cables with less street value are being used at traffic signals to make them less attractive to thieves.

Issues with heavy rain and lightning causing outages will be minimised by installing remote monitoring systems at the city’s 2 135 traffic light intersections to detect faults and alert the JRA’s Traffic Operations Centre for repairs.

To protect 3.6 million traffic signal components, R28 million has been spent over the past three years replacing aging controller equipment and R40 million replacing old lead encased cables, making signals less prone to faults in wet weather.

“Deployment of innovative earthing mats is also underway to protect traffic signals in areas most susceptible to lightning,” Kau added.

Extended power failures are the JRA’s biggest headache as they delay the repairs of faulty lights, which is supposed to take 24 hours, by almost a week.

“The use of Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) units at traffic signals is proving an effective hedge against short power outages,” the JRA said.

UPS allow traffic lights to keep operating normally despite any circumstances that would normally cause outages.

Last year, the Sandton Management District and the City of Joburg announced plans to install UPS signals in the suburb centre’s traffic lights in order to ease congestion, particularly during peak hours.

“JRA is committed to rendering visible service delivery across the City and ensuring road user mobility with working traffic signals is a priority. The community can assist us by reporting vandalism and theft of roads infrastructure as well as any traffic signal outages via our numerous reporting platforms,” Kau concluded.

[Source – JRA, image – JRA Facebook]

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