The West Long Branch Council is taking the necessary to steps to install red light cameras throughout the borough.

The council introduced an ordinance on Wednesday night that would would allow it to put the project out for bid while other specifics, including the location of the cameras, will be determined later.

A red light camera is a traffic enforcement camera that captures an image of a vehicle which has entered an intersection against a red traffic light. By automatically photographing vehicles that run red lights, the camera produces evidence that assists police departments in their enforcement of traffic laws.

West Long Branch Clerk Lori Cole said the borough would still have to go out a request for proposal (RFP) for a vendor to install the cameras if the council adopts the ordinance at its next meeting in November. Cole said the West Long Branch Police Department would determine which interesections would use the red light cameras.

Cole said the Department of Transportation (DOT) would have to approve the borough's use of the cameras before they can be installed.

"The borough must apply to be in the DOT's pilot program for the cameras, and there only a certain number of slots," Cole said. "Most of them are already taken and there are other pending applications."

The Eatontown Council adopted a similar ordinance to bring red-light cameras to Eatontown in 2011, but is also waiting to approved by the DOT for the pilot program.

Cole said the legislation that allows the red light camera pilot program expires in December, 2014, and that it would have to be extended for more cameras to be installed throughout the state.

State Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, R-13 has introduced legislation aiming to stop the spread of the Red Light Camera program in New Jersey and said he believes they are ineffective and that camera operators manipulate data to serve their own interests and not those of the citizens.