Johannesburg, 07 May 1999
JSE-listed Datacentrix has been awarded a R2m contract by TolLink to supply various IT components for the soon to be completed South African side of the Maputo corridor toll road system.
Datacentrix senior account manager, Gerhard Gouws, says the company supplied file servers, PCs, printers, network switches and routers for the project.
TolLink is a specialist engineering company and contractor for the concession company TRAC which will operate the Maputo corridor for a period of 30 years. TolLink provides the management information system and toll lane software used.
TolLink is also involved in the N3 concession road to Durban, as well as two toll projects in Malaysia.
TolLink`s Andre van Rensburg says the Maputo corridor comprises five toll plazas, three of which are in SA. "TolLink was appointed turnkey contractor by TRAC to design, supply, commission and maintain the electronic toll equipment and management information software for the N4 concession toll road.
"The network and computer products were supplied by Datacentrix who played an active role in the original design of the IT hardware architecture."
Van Rensburg says a Management Information System (MIS) is installed at each plaza which controls the data from each toll lane, reconciles traffic and income, and acts as a financial management tool.
"Each plaza is supplied with its own network server and database to process and store data emanating from that plaza. All the SA plazas are linked to headquarters in Nelspruit via the switches and routers and a dedicated Telkom WAN".
The first phase of the project - the Middleburg plaza - is complete. The second phase, which includes headquarters Nelspruit, as well as plazas at Nkomazi and Machadadorp, is scheduled for completion in May.
"The products have been delivered - we are merely waiting for construction to finish before installation," says Gouws.
He maintains that a key issue is reliability. "Toll Plazas are operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and electronic card payment systems dictate a high availability."
As far as future prospects with Datacentrix are concerned, Van Rensburg is positive. "The third phase of the Maputo corridor is still to be implemented in Mozambique and we will probably source many of our IT requirements from Datacentrix," he says.
According to Gouws, the toll systems supplied by TolLink are in line with similar systems worldwide. The software is developed internally by TolLink and supplied to TRAC.
Van Rensburg adds that from both a hardware and software point of view, it is one of the best products in the market. He says TolLink chose Datacentrix for its competitive price structure, quality products and after sales service and maintenance support.
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