No sign of Aarto

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) still has no idea when the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act will undergo a nationwide rollout.

Despite media reports saying deployment will happen early next year, Collins Letsoalo, acting CEO of Aarto manager the RTMC, says Aarto definitely won't be rolled out in December and probably won't be rolled out early next year either.

He explains that this is because the Aarto summit, which was initially supposed to be held in June, has still not taken place. The nation-wide rollout can only happen once the summit has occurred.

Letsoalo says he has no idea when the summit will take place. “It depends on the availability of the minister and the other stakeholders.”

As a result of this, the acting CEO says there can also be no indication as to when Aarto will be rolled out.

However, in April, a national traffic police unit was set up to assist with the implementation of Aarto, at a cost of R66 million per year.

In April, the RTMC established a National Traffic Police Unit to assist with the implementation of the Act.

Transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele has revealed that this unit will operate at an estimated annual cost of R66 million.

The RTMC was, in terms of the Aarto Act, the “issuing authority”, but it could not issue infringement notices without having staff to do so, and that was a reason for setting up traffic police.

The total cost for training of the issuing authorities amounted to R554 780.

About 280 traffic officers were appointed as part of the unit, to intervene in areas where local and provincial governments had failed, said the RTMC previously.

The RTMC could not previously provide reasons for the continued delay in hosting the summit.

The Act itself was supposed to be rolled out around April, but the Department of Transport (DOT) decided to hold public consultations on the matter first.

The RTMC and Tasima, which developed the technical systems for the project, say the initiative is ready for rollout on the technical side.

“Aarto is ready. It's just a matter of when the minister decides to gazette it. There's no technical reason for the Aarto delay. It's ready and can be switched on,” says Tasima CEO Tebogo Mphuti.

The consultation process was introduced to avoid the backlash that accompanied the controversial Gauteng e-tolling project, where toll fees were announced with no public engagement and then suspended due to outrage over the prices and system, as a whole.

The Justice Project SA (JPSA) says the DOT is side-lining Aarto in the face of the e-tolling system.

The organisation points to the continuous postponement of the summit.

“We fear that if things continue like this, it will continue being put off indefinitely and no progress will be made, leading to a further loss of credibility.”

JPSA national chairman Howard Dembovsky says the time to start behaving on SA's roads is right now.

“Why are South Africans being allowed to die on our roads in their droves when a points demerit system is rearing to go, and we all know that it will have a marked impact on reducing bad driver behaviour, and as a result, road fatalities?”

At the same time there are calls for operational and procedural issues with the Act to be sorted out before rollout.

The system is currently being piloted in Johannesburg, and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) has been issuing infringement notices via ordinary post, which violates the Aarto Act, since it says all infringement notices must be delivered via registered mail.

Millions will be lost in traffic fine revenue because of this technicality. The Road Traffic Infringement Agency previously confirmed to ITWeb that infringement notices delivered via normal post will be voided.

Due to this, road users are not paying their fines. This resulted in the JMPD setting up a new SMS service to remind infringers of the amounts they owe.

The JMPD still insists that fines sent via normal post must be paid and this is why it's sending out the SMSes.

It says a “large amount of unfinalised infringement notices are outstanding on the database affecting 1.4 million individuals of which approximately 450 000 have valid cellphone numbers”.

With the Aarto system, drivers gain demerit points when they commit traffic offences and this will be reflected on the National Contravention Register on eNatis.

After 12 demerits are gained, a driver's licence will be suspended. The RTMC previously said it would spend over R300 million on IT and marketing for the demerit system.