Hennie van Tonder, General Manager for Road Traffic Management at the Department of Transport (DoT), explains that the DoT awarded the tender for the NaTIS system in 1991. "Ingres was part of a solution presented by what was then Perseus Computer Systems (now PCS Computer Projects); it was examined against the backdrop of the whole solution offered by them. Once that tenderer was appointed, the DOT visited the UK and looked into Ingres` development. At the time of the appointment, Ingres complied with all of the DOT`s requirements of the database portion of the system." The system is maintained and managed by PCS Computer Projects, while Fischer & Associates are the consulting engineers.
When the tender was originally published, the DOT was looking for a distributed database that would enable the distributed processing of the data. They wanted to make use of advanced, proven technology and they wanted the total solution to be packaged in the most cost-effective manner possible. It was key for the DOT to select a solution that was based on an open systems approach, according to Van Tonder, because the DOT did not want to be tied into one specific supplier. He explains that the initial contract has undergone some changes subsequent to the initial tender, for instance, after the elections; the contract was amended to include the erstwhile TBVC states (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) into the new South Africa. NaTIS is now, operational right across South Africa throughout all nine provinces.
NaTIS comprises several different modules, including:
- The Vehicle Registration and Licensing Module this module contains records of all the vehicles in the country, including the title holder (financial institution); the full identity of the vehicle, together with its previous owners; provision for a mark from the South African Police Service in case the vehicle is stolen; as well as the road worthiness of all vehicles;
- The Driving Licences Module - this module holds the codes of all licences, any endorsements to those licences, and, in time, will also keep a record of any demerit points earned by drivers that have committed any traffic contraventions;
- The Accident Module - this keeps a record of all road traffic accidents investigated by the law enforcement authorities so that the DOT is able to determine where accidents most commonly occur; the profile of drivers that have accidents; when accidents occur most frequently, etc.
- The Operators Module - this database houses information concerning all the operators in the country; these are all the people in charge of vehicles with a gross vehicle mass exceeding 3500 kg or to carry 12 or more passengers, or vehicles that are used for the conveyance of persons for reward;
- The Infrastructure Module - this maintains a registration of all traffic-related infrastructure, such as driving licence testing centres, vehicle testing stations and traffic offices, etc -
- The Financial system - this module runs all the financial aspects within road traffic management
NaTIS works on a distributed processing principle: transactions are performed at a local level. These satellite link into a regional computer where the data is stored. The information in the regional databases is replicated onto the provincial database. All the provincial databases are linked via a TCP/IP network over a SAPONET X.25 infrastructure. Van Tonder explains, "The tender called for a distributed database and network to reduce the dependency on the communications infrastructure." The Ingres databases are housed on a variety of Unix-based servers running DataGeneral Unix, SCO Unix and SCO Open Server. Firewalls and other security mechanisms are deployed at various levels throughout the system to protect the integrity of the data within the system. NaTIS is currently running on Ingres 6.4 although the DoT is currently porting the application to Open Ingres (Ingres II), with the intention of upgrading to Ingres II by the end of 2000.
The DOT`s long-term plan, as delineated by the erstwhile Minister of Transport, Minister Mac Maharaj, is to make NaTIS available to all the SADC countries. Van Tonder explains, "At a SADC ministers` meeting, Minister Maharaj offered the member countries the system. If all the SADC countries deploy the same traffic information system, they will be able to interrogate each other`s systems. The main benefit of this will be to curb vehicle theft and to prevent insurance fraud across borders. A large number of stolen SA vehicles find their way over the country`s borders and into the neighbouring countries. Once neighbouring countries databases can be interrogated, stolen vehicles can be traced and theft can be curbed. The same applies to insurance fraud: being able to interrogate neighbouring countries` traffic information systems would enable the South African Police Services to identify when an insurance claim has been filed by the owner of a South African vehicle that has been sold in one of the neighbouring countries."
Minister Maharaj indicated that each country would need to take financial responsibility for customising NaTIS to its infrastructure, as well as for the necessary hardware and software outlays. "At this stage, Namibia is already some way down the line with its deployment of NaTIS," Van Tonder says, "While other SADC countries have also expressed an interest."
Insert table of statistics on NaTIS:
Number of users: 2300
Number of transactions per month: 3 500 000
Number of sites: 700
According to Wade Gomes, national sales manager for Computer Associates Africa, NaTIS represents CA`s largest distributed Ingres database in Africa.
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