A £250,000 traffic light system to control entry to the Scottish Parliament's underground car park has broken down less than six months after it was installed.
MSPs driving up to the car park entrance have found the lights stuck on red, leaving security guards to wave them through after checking there are no vehicles coming in the opposite direction.
Parliament officials admitted there had been "teethin
g problems" with the system over the past few weeks.
But MSPs branded the situation "farcical".
The new traffic control measures, which also involve pop-up security barriers, began operating at the end of May after taking twice as long to install as originally planned.
The traffic lights at the top and bottom of the narrow ramp down to the car park are designed to avoid bumps between cars entering the building and ones leaving.
MSPs have been given swipe cards, and an intercom link was installed so drivers could speak to the security gatehouse.
Car park users were issued with an eight-page guide explaining how the new arrangements worked.
After initially working well, the system has developed problems over the past few weeks.
One MSP said: "About half the times I've used the car park over the last month, the green light has not worked and they have had to have someone waving you on. It's a bit farcical.
"The other day when I drove in and pressed the buzzer I was told they would press the button for the light to go green and the barrier to go down, but if it stayed at red I could go anyway.
"They obviously didn't know whether it was going to work or not."
He said he could not understand what had gone wrong.
"It should not complicated – it's basically a light at the top and a light at the bottom and when one's red the other should be green. I don't think they needed it in the first place – you used to just toot your horn to let people know someone was coming and to my knowledge there were no problems, but £250,000 is a lot of money for something that doesn't work."
Another MSP said: "It's a good system when it works, but there have been glitches recently. It comes and goes."
He said the repeated failures had led to more problems, because people now thought it was not working even when it was, and would drive through red lights.
The contract for installing the new vehicle entry system was £263,806, but lasts for ten years to cover repair and maintenance.
A parliament spokesman said: "There are teething issues with the traffic lights which we expect to resolve over the coming weeks.
"Lights have been stuck on red on occasion and security staff have had to wave cars through manually. We are working with the contractors to resolve it.
"We don't know if there will be any cost (to the parliament] associated with this. The priority is to get it fixed."
The full article contains 511 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
