Cape Town`s transport system built on DLK quality

The integrity of the City of Cape Town`s Advanced Transport Monitoring System (ATraMS), which brings together transport information from a wide array of sources and formats to aid better transport service delivery, has been assured though design quality criteria developed by empowered firm, DLK Consulting Services.

ATraMs Macro Project Coordinator Rodney Steinhofel says ATraMs will be the source of information used to manage the city`s traffic systems infrastructure and "all professionals using this information have to be totally confident that it is accurate, consistent and current. This called for the highest standards of quality assurance to be designed and built into the database from conception."

DLK`s CEO Leon Hendricks was first assigned to the project in 1999 and has been instrumental in ensuring ATraMs would be built on a quality foundation. The value of that work is now being affirmed as various modules are rolled out to the user community and are available on a wide area network.

Steinhofel says that quality assurance role played by DLK ensures "that data integrity throughout the entire system is not compromised. By paying attention in the design stages as to the detail of how the data is input, stored, changed, accessed and processed, and how all this interacts, we are confident that planners are working with accurate information.

"We cannot afford to doubt the integrity of any information used as the basis for developing any transport project in the city."

ATraMs IT project leader Mike Arendse says DLK`s role in quality assurance means that the logical model rules imposed on the database will be an integral part of all the applications developed for the system.

"DLK`s quality assurance work will enforce constraints which will protect data integrity. It ensures that the impact of any input or change to the data in the database is clearly understood and acted upon throughout the application. This prevents data corruption."

DLK was also responsible for developing the Turning Movements System application module of ATraMs which enables the transport directorate to analyse traffic flow information from major traffic intersections in the city.

This helps in the configuration of traffic light settings which improve traffic flow.

DLK`s Hendricks says his firm`s database development and technical skills were proven with this challenging assignment. "We were given the opportunity to stretch our abilities with this project which has grown from the initial quality assurance brief to applications development and database management."

ATraMs was designed to integrate and improve access to information for local authority and urban planners, traffic engineers and managers, traffic law enforcement agencies, public transport operators, consultants and road maintenance managers and engineers.

When complete it will allow uses to capture data directly to the system via the internet, manage and analyse transport information, use maps to navigate to required information, and to print reports in a variety of standard formats.

The information contained in ATraMs will include traffic records (volumes, classifications and axle loadings), traffic accident records, road performance monitoring data, traffic signal fault reports, real-time traffic flows form the ATC system, asset management inventories, public transport survey data, incident and special event management, and road infrastructure and maintenance.

The initial phase of the project, which has been going live incrementally since mid-2000, is expected to be complete by the end of 2002.