WELLINGTON COUNTY – An automated speed enforcement (ASE) camera program is on the horizon in Wellington County, with a tender expected to be awarded in March.
In a verbal update to the County of Wellington’s roads committee on Tuesday, county engineer Don Kudo said the request-for-proposal (RFP) on a proposed ASE program closed this month after a few delays due to a lot of interest and questions from proponents about it.
The county now has three bids for an ASE program which will be evaluated over the coming weeks, Kudo said.
ASE cameras must be set-up in either school zones or community safety zones but the county did not specify how many cameras and where to put them as part of this RFP but asked the program to be revenue-neutral.
Kudo explained the RFP was left “open ended for proponents to provide us with what they feel is the most appropriate program for the county. We provided them the data that we have on our school zones and community safety zones. Just various traffic data so that they can see how busy our road network is.”
The county is also looking for vendors to propose what is the best processing centre to use whether that be in Toronto or elsewhere.
The ASE program is intended to be a one-year pilot on county roads only before being opened up to the lower-tier municipalities for use on local roads.
When asked if the pilot program will be issuing tickets or just gathering data, Kudo confirmed it will be a fully-live system.
“We can’t evaluate the system unless we do the entire system, so that includes ticketing,” said Coun. Gregg Davidson, committee chair with CAO Scott Wilson adding this is the only way for it to be revenue-neutral.
Staff are expected to come back with a recommended vendor and details on the proposed program in March.
