With mo­torists and com­muters in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed by large-scale traf­fic en­force­ment ex­er­cis­es dur­ing peak hours, Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke has re­vealed plans to au­to­mate traf­fic en­force­ment us­ing cam­era-based sys­tems de­signed to catch law-break­ing dri­vers.

The an­nounce­ment comes amid a surge in road traf­fic fines and in­ten­si­fied po­lice op­er­a­tions, which have sparked pub­lic de­bate over the tim­ing and sever­i­ty of en­force­ment. Clarke made the dis­clo­sure be­fore the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture, which is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tems. Com­mit­tee mem­bers pressed him on whether tech­nol­o­gy could re­duce road­side checks and al­low fines to be is­sued di­rect­ly to of­fend­ers.

Clarke said au­toma­tion would re­ly on com­pre­hen­sive ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tion da­ta, in­clud­ing dri­ver iden­ti­ties, ad­dress­es, and au­tho­rised ve­hi­cle class­es. He con­firmed that the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion’s records are ful­ly digi­tised and ready for in­te­gra­tion with cam­era sys­tems.