Sofia, Bulgaria: Yordanka Fandakova, mayor of Sofia, informed through her social media account that the municipality of Sofia had started the construction of Lozen video surveillance – a project they worked on together with the citizens of the association “Development of Lozen” and Mayor Georgi Mladenov.
She stated that the municipality began with the installation of 25 cameras that connect to the video surveillance centre of the Metropolitan Municipality and the SDVR.
Mayor Fandakova also expressed that the municipality started work on the project together with the citizens who participated and donated some of the monetary funds; she appreciated their efforts and thanked them for their contribution.
Additionally, Mrs Fandakova revealed that the Sofian Municipality have also built similar local video surveillance systems in Gorna Banya, Dimitar Milenkov, Abdovitsa, Orlandoovtsi, Krasna Polyana, Bankya and Novi Iskar.
She provided the information mentioned above through her official Facebook account. Additionally, she wrote, “10 years ago, we started building the Metropolitan Municipality’s video surveillance system literally from scratch. Sofia has the largest integrated video surveillance system with over 8,000 cameras. This includes security cameras, traffic monitoring and all public transport vehicles”.
The main objective behind installing video surveillance is to control traffic, prevent road violations, deliver quick emergency services and provide other road-related services to the people who travel daily through the roads of Sofia.
Speaking about the effectiveness of the system, mayor Fandakova informed that annually, the Sofian Municipality has handed over 700 records to the police that help uncover various crimes and violations. They have also built direct connectivity to the video surveillance system of the municipality with the SDVR.