Eye on traffic: City Hall to install 5,000 CCTV cameras throughout KL

KUALA Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) will install 5,000 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in strategic locations around the city to monitor traffic.

The project, set to be completed within this year, will be implemented in two phases, with 3,000 cameras installed in Phase One and 2,000 in Phase Two.

Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said the cameras would enable the authorities to more effectively monitor traffic congestion as well as rising water levels.

"The real-time feed will allow DBKL to analyse a situation and determine the appropriate course of action," he said on Friday (Oct 15).

Shahidan said the cameras would also help DBKL detect faulty roads and accidents by providing real-time information to its command centre.

DBKL would also install 42 panic buttons and 78 loudspeakers in public parks as an added safety measure for visitors, he said in his speech at the rebranding of the Integrated Transport Information System (ITIS) Centre in Bukit Jalil.

ITIS will now be known as the Kuala Lumpur Command and Control Centre.

"This centre will act as a hub to manage, monitor and disseminate traffic-related information round the clock," he said, adding that the centre would work closely with the DBKL Traffic Enforcement Department and Malaysian Highway Authority.

Launched in early 2003 under the 8th Malaysia Plan and the Kuala Lumpur Structure Plan 2020, ITIS was aimed at helping to reduce traffic congestion in the city.

The RM365mil project, which formally took off in 2005, comprised a traffic surveillance system that gathered, processed and supplied real-time traffic information.