Transport

NTSA bets on smart plan to curb accidents

ntsa

National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) and Traffic Police officers during a crackdown on Passenger Service Vehicles (PSV) flouting road safety rules along Kibarani in Mombasa. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NMG

The roads agency plans to roll out a smart system to tame rising cases of carnage on the roads.

National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) director-general George Njau said the authority together with other road stakeholders will roll out Integrated Transport Management System (iTMS) end of this month in a bid to reduce the number of cases.

"We have started rolling iTMS in different towns and end of June we shall roll it countrywide where police will be equipped with smart applications to help them with automatic collection of key road data for easy action," said Mr Njau.

"The new applications will involve having modern speed limit checkers, authenticating valid road users documents among others."

Road crashes have continued to be a menace in the country with a total of 1,816 deaths recorded in the first six months of this year.

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According to NTSA data, there has been an increase in the number of deaths with Nairobi and Kiambu counties contributing to the highest number of fatalities.

"Last year, Nairobi and Kiambu recorded 521 and 460 cases respectively with the same trend being reported this year. We have also noted most of the cases accounting to 66 percent happening between 4 pm and 10 pm and on weekends," said NTSA deputy director road safety, Duncan Kibogong.

The majority of road crash victims, he said are aged between 24 and 34 years with males accounting for 84 percent of total deaths.

From the latest data released on Tuesday by NTSA, motorcyclists remained the main cause of death on Kenyan roads with cases increasing from about 200 in 2000 to about 1576 in 2021. The report indicates the country loses about 5 percent of Gross Domestic Profit (GDP) from crashes in Kenya.

Speaking in Mombasa during the official opening of the National Technical Stakeholders conference on improving road transport safety in Kenya, the DG said the authority has also opened the National Enterprise Centre which will improve the processing of key road users' documents such as driving licenses among other documents by 300 percent.

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The conference was attended by different road stakeholders among them Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA), KuRRA among others.

The attendants are also expected to deliberate and adopt the 30-kilometer per hour speed limit in urban areas from the current 50-kilometres per hour.

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