The Eastern Cape Department of Transport (ECDT) today launched the first Electronic National Traffic Information System (eNatis) Computerised Learners' Licence Testing (CLLT) Centre in SA.
MEC Thandiswa Marawu unveiled the pilot at Peddie Traffic Station this morning. The pilot project forms part of the national road safety strategy.
It is aimed at introducing road safety as a life skill curriculum with an outcome of producing 10 000 new drivers with appropriate skills to become safe drivers, says the department.
“Funded by the National Department of Transport, the objective of the pilot is to deploy eNatis-based CLLT classrooms at two pilot Drivers' Licence Testing Centres within each province to evaluate the impact of the new system and allow prospective candidates to complete their learner's licence test electronically on a computer-based system.”
Fingerprint access
The new system will see the examiner allocate a specific terminal to the successfully identified applicant, before they enter the test room.
Their allocated terminal will request the applicant's fingerprint and validate its accuracy by comparing it with the application details.
The system will also randomly generate the test questions for the applicable test for each terminal and the questions will be temporarily downloaded to that test terminal, says the ECDT.
“After the test has been authorised, the questions will be deleted and the answers of the questions will be verified on the eNatis data centre and the terminal will then be locked immediately after the lapse of the test time.”
Reducing fraud
The department says the implementation of this system will provide several benefits.
These include that all the applicable questions per test type and the required marks to pass a specific test will be maintained on the eNatis; functionality will exist to maintain the demonstration clip to be displayed to the applicant on screen (text), as well as the audio clip (in all 11 official languages); and there will be a reduction in fraud and corruption, as a result of less dependency on human intervention, which translates into greater data quality.
The complete automation of the learner's licence process from application, through booking, completion of the test and eventual issuing of the learner's licence is another benefit, along with the result that no two learners will likely have the same set of questions. There will also be increased efficiencies in service delivery within the traffic administration sphere.
Digital appointment
In August, the Eastern Cape fully deployed the drivers' licence electronic booking system, being the last province to do so.
At a cursory level, eNatis essentially handles the registration of cars and booking of learners' and drivers' tests at various licensing and testing stations across the country. Officials say the service is in the process of being extended and may well handle other transport-related services, like online fine payment and the ability to renew drivers' licences online.
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