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Transport department database goes online

By Stephen Whitford, ITWeb contributor
Johannesburg, 28 Jul 2003

The Tasima consortium is implementing a R311 million system that will include a Web-based vehicle registration database for the National Department of Transport. The system will centralise control of registrations and help eliminate corruption.

Tasima includes arivia.kom`s Face Technologies along with black economic empowerment companies Thuthukani Information Technical Services and Webcom. Tasima is also partnered by Fulcrum IT, which is tracking the implementation of the new Web-based system.

The National Traffic Information System (Natis) currently handles registration of all motor vehicles around the country. The system also records details such as ownership of the vehicle, licensing, number plate details and the testing done on the vehicle. The upgraded system will be called eNatis.

Tasima project office manager Nico Jobse says the department has undertaken to upgrade Natis, to improve control of registrations and eliminate corruption.

"eNatis will upgrade the old text-based system to a Web-based system, amalgamating the various databases around the county into a centralised database. This will allow centralised control of the system and will make the tracking of users` audit trails much more accurate, cracking down on corruption," says Jobse.

He says once the 700 sites around the country that manage vehicle registration have been upgraded with new hardware and have been connected to the centralised database, data updates will be available to all users simultaneously and in real-time.

Tasima is migrating Natis to the new platform, and will then begin the process of upgrading facilities and connecting them to the central database.

"Once the National Department of Transport has finalised the migration process, we will need to upgrade the 700 sites with new hardware and eNatis. We are aiming for the new system to go live in the second quarter of next year," says Jobse.

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