Skip to main content

New hand-held technology to bolster traffic enforcement in South Africa

Provincial Traffic Officers in South Africa have been issued with new hand-held devices by the Department of Transport and Public Works as a fast, information-verifying tool that will assist enforcement. These devices have been entirely developed and tested over the past two years by the Department and will be in operation across the Western Cape; a first of its kind in South Africa.
December 22, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

Provincial Traffic Officers in South Africa have been issued with new hand-held devices by the Department of Transport and Public Works as a fast, information-verifying tool that will assist enforcement.

These devices have been entirely developed and tested over the past two years by the Department and will be in operation across the Western Cape; a first of its kind in South Africa.

The devices allow traffic officers real-time access to the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera system, which is linked to the eNaTIS database where all vehicle and driver information is stored.

The cameras read  the number plate of a passing vehicle, immediately relaying details of that vehicle’s make, class, registration status, roadworthy status, offences, warrants, and ownership to a central back office. This information can then immediately be relayed via a 3G link back to traffic officers in the field, positioned close to the ANPR, allowing them to stop a vehicle that has been flagged by the device for having offences attached to it.

The device also allows traffic officers to scan and read vehicle licence discs and drivers licences to verify their authenticity, as well as to pull information relating to past offences and possible warrants of arrest.

The system will also serve as an information gathering tool for traffic management component, assisting the Department to plan resource deployment better in areas where it is needed most.

Related Content

  • Growing use of video monitoring in traffic management
    February 2, 2012
    The county-wide expansion of CCTV coverage in Florida Department of Transportation's District Four is detailed by Citilog's Eric Toffin
  • Regional, national managed enforcement for developing nations
    February 3, 2012
    Robot is offering nationwide enforcement services to both developed and developing countries.
  • IR’s invisible benefit for traffic surveillance and enforcement
    June 30, 2016
    Advances in vision technology are enhancing traffic surveillance and enforcement applications. Variable lighting conditions have long been a stumbling block for vision technology applications in the transport sector. With applications such as ANPR, the read-rate may vary between daylight and night and can be adversely affected by glare and low sun. Madrid, Spain-based Lector Vision had these considerations in mind when designing its Traffic Eye ANPR system, which combines off-the-shelf and custom hardware
  • Brazil opts for freeflow tolling
    April 9, 2014
    David Crawford explores the technical background of Brazil’s First multi-lane free-flow tolling system. The 2013 opening of Brazil’s first fully-operational, all-vehicle, multi-lane free-flow (MLFF) tolling system in the state of São Paolo has set the scene for a new phase of modern electronic fee collection (EFC) deployment in Latin America’s largest country. It has toll programmes at both federal and state levels, with São Paulo – the most populous state, with the largest road network – leading in the awa