“The system has been installed in a very limited areas as most of the streets are not equipped for it yet,” he told Arab News.

Reports say that the new traffic monitoring system, which was implemented in Riyadh in the pilot stage, has helped drastically reduce the number of road accidents in the city.

Al-Bassami said the Directorate General of Traffic did not want to repeat the same mistakes that happened in Riyadh when the system was first launched. “The streets must have clearly marked zebra lines and must also have signboards indicating speed limits. These are the prerequisites for the introduction of the Saher system,” he explained.

Al-Bassami also offered a public-transport prediction: “I expect Jeddah to have its first metro transport in five years.”

Al-Bassami said about 30 percent of the car rental offices in Jeddah do not have official licenses to operate.

Ninety unlicensed car rental offices in Jeddah were closed down recently. “There are 210 car rental offices that have been working without license in the city. Of these 90 were closed down over the past four months,” the committee said in a statement published in Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper on Sunday. About 60,000 cars are available for renting at 600 locations in the Kingdom.