New system to monitor errant motorists in real time, says NTSA

A traffic police officer controls traffic in Kisumu. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The government will roll out a system that will alert authorities whenever a traffic offence occurs.

The Intelligent Road Safety Management System, according to the National Transport and Safety Authority, will monitor speeding and rogue drivers who tamper with speed governors.

The authority's Director General George Njao said as part of ongoing digitisation, the technology will put under one platform all Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) operating in the country.

"Unlike before, under this system each operator or sacco will have their own platform, for instance those operating Kikuyu will have their details captured in the system including assigned drivers," said Njao.

The data will be mined from speed limiters then shared in real time to matatu owners and the authority for action to be taken.

Already, 57 speed governor dealers have been put in the system so that their gadgets will be updating information concerning specific vehicles.

The agency says the system will see the phasing out of speed guns, which are often inaccurate and misused.

"Basically, the speed limiter must do three functions; limit speed above 80, record the data and transmit the same within a span of five seconds to the speed limiter vendor and NTSA servers," said Njao.