Even so, the Ministry of Transport has missed two deadlines for producing a national policy for cameras to be introduced to other potentially lethal sites such as in Manukau and elsewhere around the country, although it says it is working hard to complete the task.
"We've missed a couple of deadlines but we're still working to put out the best policy we can," a spokesman said.
But AA spokesman Simon Lambourne says the Auckland trial has confirmed the effectiveness of site selection criteria and the delay is unacceptable after crashes involving vehicles running red lights caused 10 deaths and 194 serious injuries nationally over five years to the end of 2011.
"It's simply not good enough - the Ministry of Transport is now trying to reinvent the wheel and the police bureaucracy is not supporting this as much as it should, given the road safety benefits," he said.
"The Government often talks about cutting red tape and making New Zealand a more productive economy but here's a classic example where they could cut the red tape and improve the safety and lives of New Zealanders.
"These crashes have an average annual social cost to New Zealand of about $47 million."
Mr Lambourne said Auckland Transport calculated a return of $8.20 for every $1 of the $750,000 invested in the trial in its first three years, and there had been unprecedented support for red light cameras from 75 per cent of surveyed Aucklanders.
Former associate transport minister Simon Bridges admitted to the Herald in late December that he was frustrated by the delays in developing a national enforcement policy and said he was looking forward to meeting officials early this year to achieve progress.
His successor from January's Cabinet reshuffle, new minister Michael Woodhouse, says he is "very receptive" to a more widespread use of what he agrees can be a useful road safety tool and has asked his officials to keep working with the police and the Transport Agency to make progress.
But although saying he understands frustrations over previous delays, he has refrained from indicating a timetable for officials considering the use of new-technology wireless cameras already owned by the police.
It appears to have taken more than a year since the Auckland trial results were published for the ministry to have asked the Traffic Institute representing local body traffic engineers and consultants in October for a report recommending site selection criteria.
Institute vice-president John Gottler said the Government had evidently been worried needlessly about facing demands for red-light cameras at intersections throughout the country.
"Unfortunately, there was this perception that every signal in the whole country was going to have a speed camera, and that's not true."
In delivering its report to the ministry before Christmas, the institute also identified a range of measures such as altering traffic light phasing.
Mr Gottler said that meant no more than 20 to 40 sites throughout the country should need cameras as the ultimate driver behaviour modification tool, backed by existing fines of $150.
Auckland was likely to need most of them, given that offending was far more prevalent there than anywhere else, to be followed by Christchurch and Wellington "and then the rest of them will be scattered here and there".
But ultimately it would be up to the Government to provide financial support to match local efforts and to the minister to say:
"I'm going to invest in saving lives".
