Note to editors: Please find attached soundbite by Thamsanqa Mabena MP.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on transport received a briefing from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) on their Festive Season Road Safety readiness, but it does not include the latest life-saving technology that the Transport Minister must embrace.
During that engagement it became abundantly clear that the RTMC and the Department of Transport (DoT) were not investing in emerging technologies in monitoring road behaviour, to save lives.
Around the world modern Transport Departments are embracing AI technology, to identify and adjust traffic patterns, to avoid risks, to divert traffic from harms way, and to enforce speed and safe-driving behaviour. South Africa’s Transport Department must be brought into the modern age, on this front.
The festive season in South Africa often tragically sees increased road incidents, and fatalities and the loss of human life, which technology can help avoid.
Data-driven and evidence-based decision-making has the potential to reduce road fatalities. We call on the Minster to look seriously at the work of The University of Johannesburg (UJ), which has been working on:
- Adaptive Traffic Signal Control (ATSC) lights that adjust timings based on real-time traffic conditions, reducing congestion and accident risks. This includes alerts when traffic lights are fault for speedy interventions.
- More efficient traffic monitoring, through data from cameras and sensors to detect and address unsafe driving behaviours like speeding or illegal lane changes. This information can then inform RTMC ground operations.
- Better detections of drunk driving, as RTMC only relies on roadblocks and is strained in resources.
Collaborative solutions are available to the Department of Transport and RTMC in dealing with peak season traffic and travellers safe.
We believe that emerging technologies and proper national planning can go a long way to improve road safety in our country.
This includes a full national 24/7 shift system for traffic law enforcement, across the country (like the Western Cape does).
It also includes a dedicated and integrated intelligence operational centre, to support officers on the ground.
And the DA calls this year for the deployment of drones for managing and dealing with traffic law enforcement across the country. These drones should feed their video feed into the integrated intelligence operational centre.
The DA firmly believes that using emergent technology may go a long way in assisting the Department to reduce road fatalities in the festive season.