Traffic system in stop-go mode

2007-04-23 16:44

Johannesburg - The gates of Langlaagte vehicle-testing station in Johannesburg closed and re-opened a number of times on Monday to regulate the flow of people wanting to register and licence vehicles, said metro police.

Spokesperson Wayne Minnaar said the gates had temporarily closed and re-opened about four times by 15:00.

"Opened and closed - unfortunately we cannot have more than 1 000 people on the premises."

The closing and re-opening of the gates could continue until the backlog was cleared, he said.

"The main thing I would ask is for the public to be patient.

"There're just too many people coming forward to have vehicles registered and licensed because the system was off two weeks ago and last week we had technical difficulties."

'Teething problems'

Some technical difficulties had remained, he said.

There were still "teething problems" with the upgraded transport information system, eNatis, at the five vehicle- and licensing-testing stations in the city, said Minnaar.

The Roodepoort station was unable to issue driver's or learner's licences due to "a technical fault" and the system was slow at other stations.

Minnaar said reasons were technical "teething problems" and a backlog caused by the stations being closed for the installation of the new system.

Tshwane metro police spokesperson Alta Fourie said all Pretoria stations were open, but that there still were problems.

These included occasional system collapses and a "very slow" system which took up to 20 minutes to help one person.

"On a national level, they are attending to the problem," she said.

Will be able to use ATMs

Vehicle-testing stations, vehicle-registering authorities and driver's licence-testing centres were recently closed for the upgrading of the old national transport information system (Natis) to the new eNatis system.

The new service was electronic and meant traffic-related transactions could be done through automated teller machines (ATMs) and the internet.

- SAPA