1. NaTIS

[Pages:8]1. NaTIS

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The National Traffic Information System (NaTIS) has been deployed country-wide as an information system for traffic related information in respect of motor vehicles, driving licences, persons, offences and accidents, and includes the following modules:

motor vehicle module which forms the basis of the NaTIS and comprises the registration and licensing of motor vehicles and the identification of the operators of certain classes of motor vehicles;

roadworthy module which enables the recording of roadworthy testing and the management of the roadworthy statuses of vehicles;

motor trade number module which comprises the issue and licensing of motor trade numbers to dealers;

temporary and special permit module which comprises the issue of temporary and special permits;

driver module which comprises all learners and driving licences issued as well as professional driving permits (PrDP's) issued in terms of the Road Transport Quality System (RTQS);

infrastructure module which comprises motor vehicle and driver testing facilities as well as the examiners of vehicles and drivers concerned, traffic officers, inspectors of licences and instructors of drivers;

person module which comprises the management of personal information. financial module which comprises the administration of all fees collected in terms of

Road Traffic legislation; and analysis and management information module for the extracting of statistics and

management information for purposes of planning and policy formulation.

As contract manager, Fischer Consulting (and subsequently Procon Fischer, the predecessor of Magna FS) was contracted by the Department of Transport of develop the user requirements for the system, manage the development of the application software and implement the system (including training of the entire user base) country-wide in South Africa.

1.2 BACKGROUND

Prior to the implementation of the NaTIS, vehicle registration and licensing at a very basic level, was administered by fourteen (14) manual systems (TBVC states, self-governing territories, SAPS, Post Office, Government Garage, etc.) and by four (4) independent and incompatible provincial computer systems. The provincial computer systems were each developed in isolation of the other by the erstwhile four provincial administrations. In three of the four provinces, vehicle registration and licensing transactions were completed by handwritten documents, the details of

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which were captured on the computer at a central location in the province up to 8 weeks after the fact. These computer systems were not connected and movement of vehicles between the provinces were advised by paper printout even longer after the fact. This together with the manual systems, created an environment where stolen vehicles were moved from one area to another and reintroduced into the market without detection. Furthermore, data structure deficiencies within these systems made it impossible to effectively track the monies owed by a single person in respect of various vehicles, or to counter the above-mentioned problems.

Driving licences were authorised manually and were captured onto the Population Register at the Department of Home Affairs up to 6 weeks after the fact. Driving licences issued to non RSA citizens were not captured onto any system.

At the introduction of the Road Traffic Act, 1989 (which contains the enabling legislation for the RTQS ? subsequently superseded by the National Road Traffic Act, 1996), a task team comprising representatives of all provincial administrations concluded that the previous systems were limited to licence fee collection and could not even form the base for the information needs in respect of road traffic management to be added. Furthermore, access to the above-mentioned systems to support road traffic law enforcement, was very limited. The provincial administrations, as executive authority for road traffic administration, concurred in writing with the development of a national system on the condition that it should make provision for provincial autonomy with regard to the operation and administration of the system.

This led to the appointment of the Department of Transport as principal for the development of such a system. The Department soon realised that vehicle registration and licensing formed one of the corner stones in any traffic information system.

The NaTIS is an on-line system allowing a registering authority, testing facility or law enforcement agency to key-in and verify the particulars of an applicant, vehicle, driver or traffic offender whilst the person or vehicle is present, instead of doing so after the fact and finding that false information had been supplied whilst the person or vehicle has "disappeared".

The contents and system composition of the NaTIS were arrived at after extensive consultation with:

the public sector:

Department of Transport (national responsibility for policy and coordination); Provincial Authorities (9 executive authorities in terms of Road Traffic Act); Registering Authorities (responsibility at local authority level for registration and

licensing of motor vehicles and related functions); Driving Licence Testing Centres (responsibility at local authority level for

administering driving licences); Testing Stations (responsibility at local authority level for roadworthiness testing of

motor vehicles); Law Enforcement Agencies (various provincial and local traffic departments

including the SAPS); and several government departments (such as the Office of the Public Service

Commission, Opennet (predecessor of SITA), Treasury and the Office of the Auditor-General);

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 the private sector:

manufacturers (introducing vehicles onto the system and for query purposes in respect of owners of vehicles), and through the manufacturers, their respective dealers;

importers (introducing vehicles onto the system); builders (introducing vehicles onto the system); banks (title holders of vehicles and authorising motor vehicles that are financed to

leave the country, transfer ownership to the owner upon settlement of debt and for query purposes in respect of owners of vehicles and drivers to determine whether an owner is in possession of a driver=s licence); and insurance houses (foreseen connection to the system for query purposes in respect of owners or title holders of vehicles and drivers to determine whether the driver of a vehicle is in possession of a driving licence); and

road users:

indirect users of the system in the sense that the NaTIS supports the Road Traffic Legislation and the RTQS, which aims at making road traffic conditions safer for all road users. Direct contact by road users with the system is limited to when application is made for a transaction which needs to be processed on the system.

1.3 SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT

The NaTIS environment comprises the following (Figure 1):

agencies, at which data capturing and updating take place;

data, comprising data in respect of motor vehicles, manufacturers, operators, drivers and professional drivers, infrastructure, offences and accidents, and which is maintained on the NaTIS;

software, comprising system routines which control system operation, a database management system that manages and controls all database activities, application routines that facilitates data capturing, updating and manipulation, and network software which enables information exchanges;

hardware, which is the equipment necessary for the capturing, updating, processing and storage of data, to produce the required outputs, and for the transfer of data; and

users, which include the executive users such as the Provincial Governments, Registering Authorities, Law Enforcement Agencies, CPF Interface and users such as the Department of Transport which requires information for purposes of planning and policy formulation and Statistics South Africa which requires statistical analysis of information in order to produce national statistics.

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Figure 1: NaTIS Environment

The NaTIS has already been commissioned in South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland has recently entered into a contract with Magna FS to implement the system in that country.

1.4 SYSTEM OPERATION

The following requirements have been taken into account with the design of the NaTIS: Friendly user interface (interaction between terminal operators and the computer system) to enable the easy and correct use of the NaTIS. On-line help facility to assist users in the operation of the NaTIS. On-line computer based training facility to enable operators to work through training programmes on their own and at their own pace. Quick response time in paging or when submitting transactions. Affordable total cost for the establishment and maintenance of the system. High availability of the system to the user to avoid manual transactions when serving members of the public. High quality face value documents.

GENERAL

The NaTIS is used on a national basis by Provincial Governments, Registering Authorities, Driving Licence Testing Centres, Vehicle Testing Stations, Law Enforcement Agencies and the Department of Transport.

The NaTIS is a real time, on-line transaction processing system, implying that data which is recorded must be verified and processed before the transaction can be concluded and the required output documents can be produced.

The NaTIS also provides for comprehensive system administration (i.e. user registration and maintenance, back-ups, terminal maintenance, etc.).

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ON-LINE TRANSACTION PROCESSING

In support of the required level of data integrity, the NaTIS provides for on-line data capturing, updating and validation from the authority where the transaction is initiated. This allows for computerised enforcement of a high level of quality control in respect of the rejection of incomplete source documents, the correctness of verifiable information supplied by the applicant, as well as decentralised decision making on the registration of professional drivers while the applicant is at the authority concerned.

As implied above, the updating of an existing record or the creation of a new record on the database, takes place in real time. Thus, the current information for any record is available on enquiry to all authorised users, immediately after the on-line transaction has been concluded by the authority concerned. Being a national information system, a twenty four-hour on-line enquiry service is provided for.

The data stored on the NaTIS is in all instances available for validation and updating by registering authorities during office hours. Errors in verifiable information contained in transactions are detected immediately and highlighted by the system for correction by the terminal operator performing the data entry.

HIERARCHICAL CONFIGURATION

The NaTIS comprises a hierarchical configuration with multiple processors on three levels, viz, provincial, regional and satellite levels, each with its own local systems software and a communications network linking the processors.

Data communication amongst the regional computers, between a regional computer and the provincial computer concerned, as well as amongst the provincial computers, takes place by means of a router-based network.

Data communication between a satellite and the regional computer concerned took place on a point-to-point basis by means of dedicated leased lines. The router-based network is being extended to replace the point-to-point configuration.

The hierarchical system configuration of the NaTIS is presented in the following figure.

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INTEGRATED OPERATION

The network allows for information exchanges and enquiries in respect of any entity recorded on the NaTIS from any workstation.

Furthermore, the following on-line interfaces to populate data relating to new vehicles for example on NaTIS or enable ID data verification from the population register as source system were provided for:

population register kept at the Department of Home Affairs; Motor Manufacturers; Banks; and South African Police Service (SAPS).

In addition, batch data transfer and XML based interfaces for online transactions from Local Accident Management Systems and Local Contravention Management Systems, are provided for.

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In order to ensure that the details, including professional driving permit details, reflected on a driving licence card correspond with those recorded on the NaTIS, the operation of the card production facility is integrated with the NaTIS.

On-line enquiry facilities are in operation inter alia at the following: Local Transport Permit System (LTPS); Cross Border Road Transport Agency (CBRTA); and South African Revenue Services.

1.5 INSTALLED USER BASE

The system has been implemented at more than 860 sites in all 9 provinces and continues to grow as more users are linked up. The current user count constitutes more than 3,500 concurrent work stations, representing the various role players such as registering authorities, traffic departments and testing stations. Not included in this number are the users from the SAPS, motor manufacturers and banks, who have access directly from their respective networks by means of the system-to-system interfaces to the NaTIS.

To replace the previous systems, the following was performed: confirming that the legislation is in place to ensure that the operation of the NaTIS is supported by the applicable legislation; detailed testing of the NaTIS to ensure that the specified requirements are implemented correctly and in the most optimal way; conversion of data from the legacy systems to the NaTIS, which included verification of the routines used for the conversion of data for correctness, managing the transfer process itself, as well as the operational aspects related therewith; and change management and training of users as well as assisting users during the initial commissioning of the NaTIS.

Changing from a provincial based or a manual system with handwritten records and face value documentation to an online real time system took considerable effort from the implementation team. Not only at the user (counter staff) level, but also at management level, as the entire way of operation had to be changed. Certain users who were using a manual system had never before used a computer. Such users were first trained in basic computer skills, before they could be trained on the NaTIS.

Experience very early showed that to present training at a central location a number of weeks ahead of the actual date on which the user was to have started using the system was not feasible. By the time the implementation took place the users were no longer fresh on the use of the system and refresher training had to be given.

Considerable success was achieved with training the user immediately before the system was implemented at that particular office, and then in the following 3 components:

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 class room training using the computer based tutorial available on the NaTIS to relate the transactions on the system to the legal framework stipulated in the Road Traffic legislation (typically 2 weeks for the motor vehicle module);

in-service training using the system in an office where the system has already been implemented amongst users who have been using the system for some time already (instead of the entire office being new to the system ? typically 2 weeks for the motor vehicle module), and

on-site support by a support officer well versed in the business processes and the use of the system at the home office of the user from the date of implementation for at least 2 weeks or until the user could confidently use the system without continually reverting to the practice before the system was implemented (typically 2 weeks for the motor vehicle module).

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