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28 March 2024

Dubai 'mole' in trucks to rat-out speedsters

Published
By Majorie van Leijen

A new device that will be installed in every heavy vehicle will monitor the quality of the vehicle and the driver in an effort to enhance safety among this category of road users, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has said.

Truck and bus drivers are considered the most dangerous category amongst road users, and traffic accidents involving heavy vehicles often result in considerable number of causalities, the RTA said earlier.

In an effort to enhance safety and curb accidents involving heavy vehicles, each truck or heavy bus will have a smart device or telematics installed in it, which will report any kind of fault directly to the Licensing Agency of the RTA.

“The telematics will measure tyre pressure, tyre temperature, engine temperature and vehicle weight. An alarm system will alert when there is a fault in the break system or fuel leakage,” said Sultan Al Kutbi, Director of Monitoring and Enforcement of the agency.

In addition, driver behaviour will be monitored. Over-speeding will be directly reported, and driving hours will become more restricted, he continued to explain.

“Some drivers tend to drive very long hours and this is dangerous. We are studying the proposal of driver cards, which can only be activated for one driver for maybe 6 to 7 hours. After that, the card has to be passed on to another driver.”

The results of the observations of the telematics will add up to a database, through which the agency will be able to evaluate each company in the emirate based on their technical parameters.

Each company will have different parameters based on which they will be judged. If a company produces too many problems, it will be denied the permission to re-register, explained Sultan.

Apart from the evaluation per company, drivers can be held accountable for their individual violations as well, as the RTA will be cooperating with Dubai Police.

Individual vehicles will eventually be rated as well, based on the data provided by the road technical inspections, remote detection of faults and the annual technical inspection, said Sultan. “Points will be assigned in respect of each fault or offence, based on the gravity and detected faults. All points will be listed and a final rating out of 10 will be assigned.”

The most common faults that lead to accidents on the road are tyre problems and overweight, pointed out Sultan.

Currently the installment of the telematics is still in the study phase, and a pilot project will be carried out soon.

“To start with, 30 telematics will be operated during an experimental period ranging from 3 to 6 months, and a comprehensive assessment of the experience will be made.

“When the project is finalized, we will start implementing the system in heavy vehicles that are older than 15 years, as these are the vehicles causing most problems.”

Eventually all heavy vehicles will be evaluated, which will amount to 50-60 thousand in the emirate of Dubai.