Transport going “Smart” with ICT

Last Updated 13 years ago by Kenya Engineer

This year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society seeks to link ICT technologies and how they can be used to reduce road carnage under the theme, “ICTs and improving Road Safety”.

“By integrating technology and intelligence into the physical transportation infrastructure, we can improve capacity, enhance the traveler experience and make our transportation systems more efficient”, says PS Ministry of Information and Communication, Bitange Ndemo in a statement.

The government embarked on a partnership with IBM where a white paper on transportation was developed on transforming the country’s transport system into a smarter system. The report concluded “that our transportation systems are inadequate to serve the needs of the 21st century”.

The PS also notes the role played by road transportation in Kenya pointing that it accounts to 80 per cent of the country’s total transport making it very vital in economic development.

Road transport plays a crucial part in driving the country’s economy in terms of movement of goods and services as well as people. Research shows that in Kenya reduced the current traffic congestion by 10 per cent, road transport revenue will contribute 3 per cent to the GDP annually.

“Low level of automation, duplication of roles by various government agencies who rarely share information has been a challenge in promoting road safety”, says a statement by CCK.

The government has put in place efforts to modernize the transport sector via The Transport Management System (TIMS).TIMS was envisioned in 2008 by a multi-stakeholder group led by the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Information and Communications.

According to the ICT Board CEO, Paul Kukubo, the TIMS project will be implemented in 3 phases over the course of 4 years. The phases will include tendering for system hardware needed to automate the departments and set up data repository centre. A citizen portal will also be set up allowing anyone to validate their documents via SMS.

Traffic law enforcers will adopt the Intelligent Traffic Management System to aid in monitoring traffic on the roads using machine readable number plates and cameras on the highways. The cameras are integrated into a central database.