By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
“We apologize for the inconvenience. This camera is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”
That’s the message that’s been greeting visitors to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s traffic camera website.
Faulty hardware and software is being blamed for knocking out the public’s access to nearly 150 traffic cameras run by RIDOT. It’s just one of the numerous problems the DOT is facing, but it’s on their list of things to resolve, according to a department spokesman.
At the end of last month, Governor Gina Raimondo and RIDOT Director Peter Aliviti announced a 10-year plan to overhaul the department, which the governor has called “dysfunctional.” It’s that dysfunction that being blamed for the state’s crumbling infrastructure.
“Rhode Island has the worst bridges in the country – 1 out of 5 are structurally deficient – due to underinvestment and lack of maintenance. The same problems are being seen in the technology behind our traffic cameras,” said Alviti in a statement.
RIDOT spokesman Charles St. Martin said “software and hardware failures” are to blame for the issues plaguing the network of cameras. While RIDOT said the images from the 148 cameras can still be seen at their headquarters and by State Police and E911, the public version of the footage broadcast on dot.ri.gov has been spotty since mid-September. Those who complained to WPRO about the unavailable footage say the cameras have been down for a month, but RIDOT says the website footage has only been completely unavailable for about a week and a half.
“We have been working with different configurations to maintain the camera images on the website, with periods of uptime and downtime, and at present cannot display the images without affecting RIDOT’s ability to share traffic camera images with the State Police, E911 and broadcast media,” said St. Martin.
He says the department is working to obtain the necessary upgrades for the system, which are set to cost roughly $29,000.
“The technology employed previously in terms of both hardware and software had far surpassed its lifecycle and was overdue for replacement,” said St. Martin. He said it could be another three weeks – depending on the availability of the necessary hardware – before the cameras are up and running again.
The annual cost of operating the network of cameras is roughly $7,200. The DOT says the lack of public access to the cameras will not impact any federal funding they receive.
