"Black box" - Solution to reduce traffic accidents

(Baonghean) - Installing GPS tracking devices on road vehicles is one of the important factors in reducing road traffic accidents. To make this work more effective, it is necessary to strengthen the inspection of the operations of transport businesses via GPS devices, and strictly handle violations...

Check the extraction of data from GPS before the vehicle leaves Vinh Bus Station.

Mr. Phan Huu Man - Chairman of Binh Minh Transport Business Service Cooperative (Vinh City) said: "Implementing the policy of installing GPS route monitoring equipment, the Cooperative has propagated and mobilized members to strictly implement, all passenger transport vehicles of the Cooperative have installed GPS devices in accordance with regulations. The Cooperative has 121 passenger transport vehicles, of which 51 vehicles operate inter-provincial routes, 60 vehicles operate fixed intra-provincial routes, thanks to GPS devices, the Cooperative has better monitored and managed the passenger transport work of its members". Or Duc Binh bus company operating the Do Luong - Da Nang - Hanoi route also strictly implemented the installation of GPS devices and thereby monitored the vehicle's schedule, ensuring traffic safety.

July 1, 2013 is the deadline for installing GPS tracking devices for passenger vehicles. It is known that in the province, there are 25 passenger transport businesses by car on fixed routes with 610 vehicles, 2 passenger transport businesses by bus with 68 vehicles, 7 passenger transport businesses by taxi with 855 vehicles, 10 other transport businesses under contract with 46 vehicles... and all passenger transport vehicles have successfully installed tracking devices. Among them, some businesses such as: Van Minh, Thanh Vinh, Thach Thanh. Binh Minh... have a large number of vehicles, so they have signed contracts with equipment suppliers and strictly implemented maintenance, so the GPS devices operate stably. Installing this device helps the Transport sector better manage passenger transport of units, businesses, and bus companies in the area and thereby have appropriate solutions to handle violations.

Currently, the management of journey monitoring devices is carried out by businesses, units using GPS, or authorized enterprises providing equipment and all data is managed by the Department of Transport, the Department of Roads. Mr. Vo Xuan Thanh - Deputy General Director of Nghe An Bus Station Joint Stock Company said: "In accordance with the requirements of the Department of Transport, all vehicles must have GPS devices and this device is operating. Before leaving the station, all data must be extracted for Vinh Bus Station to carry out departure procedures, avoiding the situation where some units and vehicle owners install GPS devices but they do not operate and only deal with inspections... Every day at Vinh Bus Station, 300 vehicles departing the station have been checked for data extraction from GPS". Thanks to strict compliance with the installation of GPS devices and full data extraction, management work at Vinh Bus Station has many advantages. Before installing the journey monitoring device, there were vehicle owners who arbitrarily signed passenger transport contracts to other provinces for many days in a row, so they abandoned the route and informed Vinh Bus Station that they had to take the vehicle for repair, or used the excuse that the driver was sick... causing difficulties for passenger transport services as well as making it very difficult to handle the vehicle owners and vehicle owners, but after installing the journey monitoring device and requesting data extraction, that situation no longer happened. Vehicle owners and drivers complied with the schedule and registered routes, even controlling whether the vehicle entered the station or not, or transferred passengers along the way...

Recently, the Ministry of Transport has established a team to inspect the implementation of solutions to ensure road traffic safety and order in Nghe An, thereby highly appreciating the units and transport enterprises that have done a good job of installing journey monitoring devices. However, through the inspection of GPS devices, it has also been discovered that some units and enterprises have drivers who have committed violations regarding continuous driving time, or have driven vehicles at excessive speeds, drivers who do not log in to the driver's name when changing drivers... such as at Thanh Vinh Company, the team of the Ministry of Transport has discovered that the drivers of 5 vehicles running on the Vinh - Hai Phong route have committed a total of 599 speeding violations (the maximum vehicle speed is 89 km/h) and have many violations regarding continuous driving time, such as vehicle 37B - 00279 which has 234 speeding violations and 14 violations regarding continuous driving time.

Through investigation, it is known that due to the requirement that all passenger transport vehicles must install journey monitoring equipment according to the prescribed time (July 1, 2013), some units, businesses, and bus companies cannot choose reputable equipment suppliers, leading to GPS only operating for a short time, or often having technical problems, causing incidents. Also through the inspection team of the Ministry of Transport on the implementation of solutions to ensure order and safety of road traffic in Nghe An, it was discovered that the journey monitoring equipment installed on the 37V - 3679 vehicle of Thach Thanh enterprise had information about the number of times exceeding the speed limit that was not in accordance with QCVN 31: 2011/BGTV.

The installation of journey monitoring devices on road vehicles has brought about clear results and is one of the important factors in reducing road traffic accidents. To make this work more effective, it is necessary to strengthen the inspection of the operations of transport businesses via GPS devices, strictly and resolutely handle violations of speed, driving time, and travel routes, suspend operations, and revoke badges for vehicles with GPS devices that are not working or do not meet standards.

Hoang Vinh