SMS traffic fine service flooded

Johannesburg, 19 Jan 2006

Residents have flooded the Johannesburg Metro Police Department`s (JMPD`s) new SMS traffic fine query service, with backlogs caused when around 70 000 people attempted to use it on its first day.

The service, launched on Tuesday, allows motorists to check their traffic fines, summons and warrants. The JMPD partnered with 2Big Mobile Applications and Vodacom to introduce the service. To check for traffic fines, motorists can SMS their ID number to 36997 from any cellphone network provider. Each SMS costs R5.

"The current high number of people sending SMS messages shows a lot of people have outstanding fines they are not sure of and would like to settle them as soon as possible. The number of people making inquiries is higher than we expected," says Edna Mamonyane, JMPD spokesperson.

"We are having a problem with people resending their inquiries, in a desperate attempt to get an immediate response. The public should not re-send their inquiry and should instead wait patiently for a response from their first attempt. We are having a backlog problem due to the limited bandwidth available on the network. Our technical team is currently working on the problem and will inform us on their progress as soon as possible," says Mamonyane.

"Once an inquiry is made, the JMPD data system immediately captures their information. It may take a while to get feedback. Most people managed to get a response in time but others had to wait. The current problem is the delay in response," says Mamonyane.

Intervention

Wireless application service provider aggregator Integrat has intervened to assist its client 2Big Mobile to resolve service issues surrounding the SMS service.

The company says the high traffic rate is causing a processing delay at the client`s application layer. The delays are not caused by the networks or by the gateway services, it adds.

Integrat has unblocked the flow of responses back to the public by adding a slight delay into the system. This has resulted in a response that has been perceived by the public as a degraded or non-functional performance, it says.

"We expect our assistance will help to get the system functional as soon as possible."