8 May 2007
Pretoria: The eNaTIS contract was awarded to the Tasima consortium during
September 2001 and contract RT1194KA was signed on 3 December 2001. The
official start date of the contract was 1 June 2002. The Ministry of Transport
would like to reiterate its resolve to ensure the transformation of the
national traffic information through the eNatis system. We remain committed in
improving service delivery and reducing long queues created by 14 years of the
old NaTIS system. The challenges of transition from one system to another will
therefore not stand in the way of implementing the new system to its full
potential.
Since its launch, most functions of the eNatis have performed optimally,
except for the vehicle registration functionality. The system has for instance
performed more than 4 million transactions, with 50 000 transactions on average
per hour compared to 30 000 transactions in the old system. On Thursday, 3 May,
the system was able to reach a new record usage of 500 000 transactions per
day, more than was ever recorded on the old system.
The eNaTIS application currently consists of the following application
modules:
* motor vehicle registration
* introduction of motor vehicles by manufacturers, importers and builders
* operators
* infrastructure
* persons and bodies
* drivers
* contraventions
* accidents
* financial
* system and user administration.
All eNaTIS modules mentioned above are operating at acceptable response
times except for the vehicle registration module where specific transaction
response issues have been identified.
However, it must be mentioned that the problem with the vehicle registration
function has not gone without being noticed; its main cause being the system
constraints in server capacity to deal with the demand for database access. The
main source of this capacity constraint is due to the eNaTIS running on a
consolidated single database containing all national data, whereas the old
NaTIS was running distributed database architecture with 14 smaller
databases.
The change to central database architecture was necessitated by the future
introduction of new functionalities to alleviate the congestion at service
centres. Some of the most important functionalities are the planned
introduction of internet transactions and payment of licence renewals at
automated teller machines (ATMs) which could decrease the amount of human
traffic at service centres by up to 80 percent. Also, the introduction of AARTO
and the points merit and demerit system has also necessitated the change to a
modern centralised system.
Prior to going live with the eNaTIS, extensive data migration testing
exercises were performed to ensure a smooth migration of the total dataset from
14 databases to a central database. Numerous user acceptance tests of the
application were performed together with users from all provinces. Provincial
dry runs as well as a national dry run took place to perform a simulated live
environment. However, it should be noted that the system was not pushed to the
usage limits now experienced and therefore the capacity constraints were not
apparent.
During monitoring of the system after going live, capacity constraints were
identified. The possible problem areas were eliminated one by one until the
actual constraint was diagnosed as being server capacity and database related
optimisation issues.
In order to limit unavailability of the system during business hours, the
technical team started implementation of these interventions after business
hours during the weekend period starting 4 to Sunday 6 May 2007. Due to the
magnitude of the task, the technical team was not able to complete this process
by Monday, 7 May 2007 at 2 pm. During this weekend period a number of
adjustments were made on the database level and new server with bigger capacity
installed, including the improvement of the communication between the servers
and the database. Interventions that were implemented include the
following:
* increase in database server capacity by means of introduction an
additional server into the database cluster
* adjustments on 600 database tables and their index files to improve database
efficiency
* optimisation of the source code of all transactions with slow responsive
behaviour
* improvement in the communication protocol between database servers and the
storage configuration.
With the above interventions the eNaTIS was brought back online at 8 am on
Tuesday, 8 May 2007. With immediate effect users started utilising the system
on a national basis and reports received indicate that the system is operating
in a stable manner with marked improvement in response times. Prior to the
implementation of the interventions the system operated in an unstable state
with certain transactions responding slowly and non-responsive during peak
periods. Early indications are that transactions are responding faster and
non-responsive behaviour has not been witnessed. Generally the system is
operating at about 80% of the response times of the old NaTIS system and is
available for transactions 93% of official business hours as opposed to 99,5%
of the old NaTIS.
For the next two days the focus will be to keep the system operating in a
stable manner as is currently being experienced. In parallel with this the
Department of Transport will continue to implement low risk minor interventions
to continue the optimisation cycle.
During the forthcoming weekend of 11 to 13 May 2007 additional interventions
of greater impact will be implemented. These interventions include the
following:
* improvement in communication speed between the database servers and the
storage sub-systems
* optimisation of source in respect of slow transactions
* implementation of partitioning on very large database tables
These interventions will enable us to achieve 99,5% system availability a by
Monday, 14 May 2007 and the Department of Transport is confident that the
system will be operating at the same reaction speed compared to the old NaTIS
system.
The Ministry will send an official communiqué to all MECs and HoDs of
Provincial Departments of Transport to make necessary arrangements for staff
members to work extended hours to reduce the backlog. Indications are that some
provinces have already extended their hours of operation.
The contractor has also agreed to deploy skilled resources within the
provinces to assist provincial authorities throughout the implementation cycle
until stability has been achieved.
Regarding the issuing of traffic fines related to the functions of the
system, e.g. the expired vehicle licences etcetera, the law enforcement
agencies will be briefed accordingly to treat every case on its merit.
Motorists already issued with traffic fines, "due to no fault of their own",
will have their fines reviewed on merit and considered for cancellation by the
relevant traffic authorities.
As soon as the system stability targets have been achieved, the Department
of Transport will prioritise the implementation of additional eNaTIS modules
that will relieve congestion at service centres and make interaction with our
services far more accessible. These additional modules include the enabling of
vehicle licence renewals through the internet or automated teller machines, a
national booking system, online registrations, access to the system via secure
internet and mobile connections by the end of September.
The Department of Transport and the contractor responsible for the
development of the eNaTIS unreservedly apologise for the inconvenience caused.
The Department of Transport is confident that the benefits of such
interventions outweigh the inconvenience. The public is therefore requested to
exercise patience while we ensure that the system works accordingly.
Media Contact: Collen Msibi
Cell: 082 414 5279
Issued by: Ministry of Transport
8 May 2007
