Online Reporter
Freeman Razemba
Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT is rolling out the Electronic Traffic Management System (ETMS) to detect traffic violations countrywide as part of efforts to curb reckless driving and reduce road traffic accidents.
The system integrates intelligent surveillance cameras, automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR), and central databases to automatically detect, fine, and prosecute traffic offenders.
This new smart platform is expected to consolidate these efforts by linking camera detection systems to a centralised database, enabling real-time monitoring, instant identification of offenders and efficient penalty processing.
The initiative is also part of Zimbabwe’s broader digital transformation agenda, which seeks to integrate technology into critical sectors, including transport, law enforcement and urban management.
Zimbabwe has already stepped-up efforts to fast-track transition into a digitally-driven economy, with a strong emphasis on harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) as a catalyst for industrialisation and economic transformation.
In an interview, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Advocate Felix Mhona confirmed the development and said they were working in conjunction with the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage.
“We are collaborating, as the whole of Government approach, where we are working with the Minister of Home Affairs (Kazembe Kazembe), and if you have seen within the great city, they have already started installing cameras, especially at intersections. So this is going to also help since the offenders will be accounted for, and through our civil platform, where we will actually announce people to say, if you see someone violating, you need to report and even the camera will capture the details. And through our Central Vehicle Registry, we can tell who the owner of the vehicle is, and you will also be receiving your tickets, and I think this will be done electronically,” he said.
He said the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe and other relevant stakeholders will continue conducting awareness campaigns countrywide and that they have come up with adequate measures to ensure road signs along highways are maintained.
Minister Mhona said it was also quite disturbing that some people vandalise road infrastructure, especially these road signs.
“And again, we cannot continue this kind of behaviour as a nation, where we invest in road signs, you see people defacing our signs,” he said.
“But we are saying, as we are collaborating within the region, where we are having road signs to mirror other road signs within the region, we will continue to make sure that we replace those signs that we have and to make sure that on those dangerous spots, we advise the motorists, we advise pedestrians.
“So you will see us again attending to the issues of road signs across, whether we are talking of our highways, we are talking of our roads within the cities, we will continue having that in place,” he said.
Bongani Ndlovu