Nairobi News

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) will next month launch a digital platform that will detect accidents as they happen.

According to NTSA Director General, George Njao, the Intelligent Road Safety Management System High Level Components (On-vehicle Devices, Portal, RRD and CMC) system will also be able to detect tampering of speed governors and record speed.

Speaking at a media roundtable on Tuesday, Mr Njao said the authority would digitise most of its services in an effort to curb errant driving on the roads.

The system will also be able to identify which vehicles are off the road, driving in the wrong direction or being driven badly.

Each PSV sacco will have the system, which will be accessed by NTSA officials, allowing the authority to work closely with matatu operators.

The system will also track the location of the vehicle and be matched to approve the routes the vehicle will apply at a given time.

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“Under the system, each operator or sacco will have its own platform. For example, those operating the Kikuyu line will have all their details available on the system, including their assigned drivers,” Mr Njao said.

With the new system, Njao said, hit-and-run cases on the roads will no longer be reported as the driver’s database in the driver’s licence will be easily accessible.

Once the authority gets alert from the system, they will be sent to the nearest police station for action.

Mr Njao said if a vehicle is involved in an accident, they will be able to get the data, including the details of the driver so that they can communicate with a particular sacco to take action against that driver.

“All the matatus saccos will be integrated into the new system, and they will have their platform, and we will have one on our side. It will help us to digitise the enforcement process,” he said.

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At the moment, Mr Njao said, 57 speed limiter dealers and their gadgets have been integrated into the new system.

“Speed limiter must do three functions; limit speed above 80, record the data and must transmit the date in a span of five seconds to the speed limiter vendor and NTSA servers,” he said.

The system will be reporting the happenings in real time in case of disconnection, violations, rapid response, command center monitoring and offenses management.

System monitoring will be happening at NTSA’s Central Monitoring Centre at Likoni Road.

Speaking about fatalities on the road, Mr Njao said the cases reported between January and May 2023 decreased by 34 compared to the same period last year.

The data indicates that a total of 1,679 fatalities were recorded this year compared to 1,756 reported last year. A total of 571 pedestrians have lost their lives so far, followed by motorcyclists who are 449 compared to 323 passengers.

During the same period, 149 drivers lost their lives compared with 151 pillion passengers and 36 pedal cyclists.

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