70 radars for Traffic Department
Publish Date: Thursday,18 May, 2006, at 11:42 AM Doha Time

From right: Lt Col Ahmed al-Jamal, Lt Col Saud Rashid al-Shafi, Brig Khaled Hassan al-Nuaimi and K M Varghese at the press conference
Staff Reporter

THE Ministry of Interior and Telco International of Qatar signed a deal to supply 70 radars to check vehicular speed for the Traffic Department.

The project to supply, install and operate the system for four years is worth QR24mn, officials said. The equipment is to be installed in one year.

Of the 70 units, 55 will be fixed devices installed on the side of roads, five mounted on vehicles and 10 fixed on tripods.

The contracts were announced at a press conference yesterday attended by Brig Khaled Hassan al-Nuaimi, director of the Criminal Investigation and Evidence Department, Lt Col Saud Rashid al-Shafi, member of the Milipol-Qatar Organising Committee and head of the Interior Ministry’s procurement section, and Lt Col Ahmed al-Jamaal, director of the ministry’s financial affairs and member of the organising committee.

The first lot of 20 radars will arrive in three months. They will be installed at all major roads in the country.

The German-made radars will be using the latest digital camera. Earlier devices used film that had to be removed, washed and printed.

The latest system can be directly linked to the central control room as and when the fibre optics national network is completed.

Until that happens, Telco will physically remove the data, process it and hand it over to the Traffic Department.

Telco will also be setting up a traffic camera control room where the data will be processed.

The new radars will also include four ‘TraffiTower’ devices that will aesthetically merge with the city’s landscape. They are likely to be installed at the Corniche.

Telco, the only supplier of traffic radars in the country, has been providing the equipment to the Traffic Department since 1993, said its executive manager K M Varghese. "We are very happy to be associated with the Traffic Department in its efforts to make Qatari roads safer", he told Gulf Times.