‘Safe City’ to expand to Strumica, Shtip and Bitola; police to measure speed and fine parking

The Ministry of Internal Affairs will expand the "Safe City" traffic monitoring system to Strumica, Shtip and Bitola and plans to equip police vehicles with moving speed-detection cameras, Minister Panche Toshkovski announced at a press briefing.

Mobile cameras and in-car speed detection

Toshkovski said the in‑vehicle cameras that can measure the speed of other road users are scheduled to be tested next month and should be fully operational no later than February. Additional mobile cameras will also be purchased and deployed at identified traffic "black spots" across the country.

According to the minister, the mobile units will be positioned not only in central urban areas but also on major and express roads where the highest numbers of fatal and serious-injury collisions have been recorded.

Explaining the rationale for cameras in police cars, Toshkovski said: "We concluded that no matter how many cameras we install at specific locations, we will not be able to act preventively to the degree we want, until every person who drives improperly is uncertain at which exact location they can be detected for breaking the law. The proposal we received from experts is to install in the existing police vehicles cameras that will be able to detect speed, and they can be placed anywhere, they can, while in motion, record driving at an excessive speed by traffic participants."

The rollout timetable given by the ministry foresees the system reaching the whole country by February next year, one year after its official introduction. Implementation in Strumica is to begin in the first week of December, in Shtip by the end of the year and thereafter in Bitola.

In addition, Toshkovski said the "Safe City" system will start recording illegal parking and stopping offences by the end of the year. He added: "Until now there was a technical problem in automatic recognition of illegally parked vehicles in conditions of heavy traffic jams, so the system could not always accurately distinguish between a stop caused by congestion and a real offence. By the end of the year we will begin to register illegal parking and stopping of vehicles."

The minister also cited a reduction in road fatalities since the introduction of the system: he said the number of deaths dropped by about 29 percent compared with the previous two years. Between January and October this year there were 85 fatalities, compared with 117 in the same period last year and 119 in 2024.

Photo: press material from the event