Al Tayer and Al Basti launch RTA’s Licensing Intelligent Operations

• The facility covers drivers and vehicles licensing, smart monitoring
• Smart monitoring is set to jump from 100% in 2020 to 400% in 2023
• CCTV cameras increased from 629 in 2017 to 1116 in 2020 and will leapfrog to 2150 in 2023
• Number of Dubai-registered vehicles clocks 1.8 million vehicles, number of supported vehicle licensing centres reaches 47 centres

His Excellency Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, Director-General, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), and His Excellency Abdullah Mohammed Al Basti, Secretary-General of Dubai Executive Council, have launched the Licensing Intelligent Operations Centre (LIOC). The Centre has three sections: Drivers Licensing Operations, Vehicles Licensing Support, and Smart Monitoring.

They toured the Smart Monitoring Centre and heard a briefing from the CEO of the Licensing Agency Abdullah Yousef Al Ali about the centre, which monitors the performance of licensing service providers in Dubai. It covers 28 vehicle testing centres and 19 vehicle driving institutes branches besides monitoring commercial activities and heavy trucks remotely. The centre has 10 systems that support remote smart monitoring and inspection operations. These systems relate to vehicles safety, sensing of theoretical training rooms, drivers training, commercial licensing, vehicle rental, geographic tracking, electronic licensing, centricity of technical testing, cameras management, and measuring weight and dimensions of vehicles on the move.

The centre aims to improve transport and traffic safety and reduce accidents and fatalities by strengthening the oversight of driving institutes and enhancing the environmental sustainability of transportation by intensifying the monitoring of vehicle technical testing centres. It also seeks to improve and sustain smart government solutions and services through smart methods developed at the centre. The centre will also cement the relationship with service providers and strategic partners, and step up compliance with the applicable laws and regulations.

Smart Monitoring

The Director of Licensing Activities Monitoring Mohammed Nabhan gave a briefing about the operational efficiency of the smart monitoring centre, which has seen 100% improvement between 2017 and 2020, and the improvement rate is set to shoot up to 400% by 2023.

The briefing stated that the number of testing centres and driving institutes covered increased from 34 in 2017 to 45 in 2020 and the number is expected to reach 53 centres and institutes by 2023. Likewise, the number of surveillance cameras jumped from 629 in 2017 to as much as 1116 in 2020 and will continue upwards to reach 2150 cameras by 2023. The daily inspection operations rocketed from 35 inspections in 2017 to 425 inspections in 2020 and the number is anticipated to reach 5000 inspections by 2023.

The plan envisages the introduction of the Robotic Monitoring Inspections System, which links CCTVs with big data systems fitted with automatic notifications. It also involves using artificial intelligence to analyze camera footage without human intervention. The aim is to enhance operational governance through the Video Automation Management System, and link with more than 2000 surveillance cameras to expand the scope of the remote monitoring.

Customer’s Journey

Al Tayer and Al Basti then toured the Vehicle Licensing Support Centre, which caters to the governance of the licensing and electronic traffic system through facilitating the customer’s journey, and lending support to 47 centres running vehicle licensing services in addition to 17 government departments. The number of vehicles registered in the emirate is estimated at 1.8 million vehicles.

The two leaders listened to a briefing about the drivers licensing presented by Mansour Al Falasi, Director of Drivers Licensing. The briefing included the three main operational tasks, the first is drivers' testing services, which consists of 7 systems, 187 examiners and supervisors, 2222 testing vehicles, 2,500 tests per day, and 500 videos per day. The second is the institutes' services which involves providing support to 242 partners and service providers, 2,500 driving instructors, 4,000 training hours per day, in addition to dealing with about 300 support requests daily to support driver licensing operations.

The briefing covered the current and targeted performance indicators aiming to reduce the time of signing-off testing complaints from one day to two hours, increase the compliance of driving institutes with the practical training from 67% to 80%, raise the compliance with smart registration of trainees from 58% to 80%, boost the compliance with daily testing plans from 90% to 95%, and reduce the response time to road testing emergencies from two hours to 10 minutes.

Al Tayer and Al Basti also reviewed the data mind mapping of driver's licensing department, which includes 14 million logs per day, and the future expansion plan up to 2024. The plan includes upgrading the smart yard testing of drivers, analyzing data by automated processes, launching an interactive testing platform, adopting self-managing processes powered by artificial intelligence technologies and the Internet of Things, introducing a unified driver testing system, and launching the smart yard testing for heavy vehicles.

At the end of the tour, His Excellency Abdullah Al Basti praised RTA's efforts and keenness to use smart technologies and solutions in a variety of processes relating to the licensing of drivers and vehicles as well as the smart monitoring. He added that such a drive would contribute to the improvement of road safety and security and minimizing traffic accidents related to the conduct of drivers.

News Source: https://mediaoffice.ae/en/news/2020/December/23-12/Al-Tayer-and-Al-Basti-launch-RTA