JOHANNESBURG – PUBLIC safety and efficiency in the transport sector are set for a major improvement following the introduction of the intelligent transportation system (ITS) solution for buses.

 Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has launched the first-of-its-kind system in Africa at the i-Transport and UATP Conference and Exhibition in Johannesburg.

 The offering seeks to address economic losses caused by traffic congestion and more than 30 million traffic accidents have resulted in the deaths or injury of over 1,3 million people yearly. Africa is home to 40 of the 50 countries with the highest road death tolls, often blamed on inefficient transportation management methods.

 Alex Du, Managing Director of Huawei Enterprise South Africa, said the next-generation intelligent transportation solutions enable the transport sector and travelers to achieve agile operation, convenient user experience and enhanced safety.

 “With an integrated design and an open platform, the solution will be able to help bus operators reduce maintenance costs, enable the offering of additional value-added services, and overall traveling experience for South African passengers,” said Du.

 He said Huawei believed innovative ICT was the core driving force for smart solutions and was committed to offering flexible information sharing, ubiquitous broadband access, a high level of service agility and security for transportation industry development.

 “Huawei also provides an open ICT platform and will continue to work with partners in Africa to build an efficient win-win industry ecosystem to promote the deployment of intelligent applications,” said Du.

 The ITS solution leverages internet-of-things capability to provide a variety of safety and security services such as in-bus video surveillance, accurate passenger tracking, emergency services communication, real-time bus health data analysis and even allows for a host of multi-media services for passenger entertainment.

 By enabling high-speed internet connectivity to buses, stakeholders can also access high-definition in-bus video surveillance to monitor driver and passenger status, analyse driver performance, highlight potential safety issues such as suspicious passenger activities and even allow for swift connectivity to emergency services in the event of an accident or crime.

 Huawei’s ITS solution for buses forms part of Huawei’s extensive intelligent transportation system ITS solutions offering, which aims to improve public safety and efficiency across all forms of transport including buses, taxis and heavy goods vehicles.

 It integrates leading ICT technology and intelligent algorithms to support traffic data centres, Internet Protocol Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP MPLS) and optical transmission network, video surveillance platforms and other ICT infrastructure in order to build a comprehensive unified traffic management platform.

 The system is applied to monitor and control urban traffic to improve traffic safety and efficiency, and includes features such as traffic signal control, electronic policing, traffic flow data collection and traffic guidance, through an integrated traffic management command control centre.

  – Guardian