25 Jan 2015

On average, 500 lives are lost every year due to road accidents. 

On Friday, January 23, Minister of Transport and Communications Mr Tshenolo Mabeo officiated at a ground breaking ceremony of the Intelligent Driver Testing System (IDTS) at Maruapula practical yard testing ground, a first of its kind project in Africa aimed at reducing road traffic accidents and corruption.

Following its success track record in 10 first world countries including Russia, China and Georgia, acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Communications Ms Onalenna Sechele said they found the concept in Georgia while on a benchmarking mission.

“We are witnessing a project that is the first of its kind in Africa.”

She said the project is embarked on to reduce road traffic accidents and ensure that driver licensing processes produce quality drivers, adding that the ministry will leverage on the existing automated systems to enable easier integration of IDTS into the licensing system.

Minister Mabeo said once the project is complete computers will “judge our ability without any human interference hence will promote transparency and fairness and curb corruption practices which used to occur when issuing out licenses.”

Further, he said the project will enable for increased number of candidates to be tested compared to the current system adding that the candidates will be relieved of the burden to look for and pay for vehicles when they go for tests as the computerised vehicles will be available.

In an interview project contractor, Mr. Kwon Min of Neo Information Systems - a Korean company - said the project which was expected to complete in six months was valued at around P22 million . 

He said his company which conceptualised the automated information systems in 2004 and initiated the system in South Korea in 1995 was driven by modifying transport services and finding solutions to reduce road traffic accidents. 

“We wanted to change the attitude of the driver and this method has worked in other countries.”

Quizzed on how the system will work, he said, “we install sensors in the testing vehicle, on the ground, the control room and the waiting room and these sensors will record every detail. 

When the candidate makes 30 mistakes out of 100 then they would have failed the yard test and there is no how anyone can temper with the computer.”

He said another advantage is that one gets the results in real time. ENDS