Better truck detection

Michael van der Westhuizen, Table View

There have been numerous complaints about the traffic lights that do not change when a heavy vehicle is at the lights on the Pick n Pay side of Boy De Goede Circle.

This causes long tailbacks and eventually the truck has to go through a red light so the traffic can start moving again.

This is already a high accident intersection. What will it take for the traffic department to fix this problem, several deaths?

Suzette Little, mayoral committee member for area north responds : The City’s transport network management team has investigated the detection infrastructure at the intersection of Boy de Goede Circle and Blaauwberg Road as identified in the letter received.

It was observed that the detector on the affected leg was not detecting three-ton trucks and larger.

It has since been set to be more sensitive and, based on CCTV observation, the City can verify that larger vehicles are now being detected.

The City will continue to monitor this intersection for a while so that adequate testing can be done to ensure that the detection infrastructure is functioning to specification for various sizes of truck.

Furthermore, it must be noted that no service requests reporting this fault were logged with the City’s traffic signals team in the last six months.

The City encourages motorists to please report complaints of this nature to the Transport Information Call Centre on 0800 65 64 63 or via email toTransport.Info@capetown.gov.za

Motorists need to provide as much information as possible, such as the name of the intersection, their direction of travel, the time of day, and the observed problem, which will enable the traffic engineers to quickly identify the problem and take remedial action.