“I am proud of the citizens because we have a drastic reduction in the number of victims in traffic accidents in Skopje since the start of the pilot period of the ‘Safe City’ project,” said the Minister of Interior, Panče Toshkovski, during his guest appearance on the evening news on Sitel Television.
“I would like to thank the citizens because they proved that even without penalties, they managed to reduce the number of fatalities from 11 to two deaths in the period December–January, compared to December 2024–January 2025. The number of injured citizens in the territory of SVR Skopje during these 50 days in which ‘Safe City’ has been operating has been reduced by 35 percent,” emphasized Minister Toshkovski.
He stressed that the goal of the “Safe City” project is to increase the safety culture among citizens, and as a result, to have as few traffic violations as possible, as few injured persons as possible, and most importantly, as few human casualties as possible.
“We started with 100,000 violations per day, but now they are drastically fewer. However, it is still a large number,” Toshkovski said.
He explained that “Safe City” will sanction four types of violations.
“The ‘Safe City’ system will record running a red light, driving above the speed limit, illegal parking, and unregistered vehicles. It is very important to know that we have had this benefit of smart cameras for 15 years. The Ministry of Interior has been using them for more than 15 years as part of its operational and criminal investigation activities for detecting committed crimes. Of course, the cameras will also be used for specific criminal offenses that need to be solved,” said Minister Toshkovski, adding that payment orders will be able to be settled electronically, traditionally at a bank, or at any police station, as well as through all electronic banking applications.
“There will also be a special application developed by the Ministry of Interior that will be made available to citizens, where through special protection and user authentication we will ensure that it is the person using the application. They will receive appropriate information at their email address and phone number provided, and will be able to log into the application. Through this application, they will be able to make payments, review all issued sanctions, etc.,” Toshkovski said.