Thursday 28 June, 2018
Traffic law offenders will now receive notifications of their offence through SMS.
For this, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) signed an agreement with Vodafone Fiji at the LTA Head Office in Valelevu Nasinu, today.
The Land Transport Authority, Board Chairperson, Vijay Maharaj and Vodafone Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ronald Prasad signed the agreement to reaffirm their commitment to this new initiative which was in-line with LTA’s goals, to increase customer service efficiency.
Mr Maharaj said LTA was elated to introduce the new services for its customers.
“The provision of Vodafone’s SMS Service will allow LTA to notify drivers and vehicle owners that they have an infringement recorded under their names,” Mr Maharaj said.
“Basically, if a driver or a vehicle owner has been captured by one of our red light/speed cameras, the respective person will receive a text message immediately to notify them to visit the nearest LTA office to clear their fines,” Mr Maharaj additionally explained.
The initiative is in line with the amended Traffic Act of 2017 which gives provisions for customers to be notified as soon as possible.
“Previously, what used to happen was that our red light/speed cameras would capture an offence and the vehicle owner would be sent a letter via post, and often the customers would miss deadline by the time they received the Traffic Infringement Notice.
“With this new system in place drivers or offenders will have no excuse that they were not notified,” Mr Maharaj said.
As part of the service, Vodafone will be providing LTA with access to Media Platform to facilitate the SMS Reporting Services.
“This service is not only limited to drivers offending by red light/speed cameras but it will be for all TINs issued manually by enforcement/Police officers as LTA will be working to ensure drivers or vehicle owners are notified in a timely manner.
With the introduction of the new service, Mr Maharaj is also advising all drivers to visit their nearest LTA office and update their contact details so that the notifications will reach the right customer as soon as possible.
Moreover, Vodafone Fiji’s Acting Chief Executive, Ronald Prasad, said they were excited to partner with LTA for the SMS platform, a solution that will aid the LTA in better communicating with their stakeholders, particularly, their customers.
“This platform is simple to use and very effective in terms of reaching the target population,” Mr Prasad said.
Moreover, Mr Prasad explained that SMS still had a high opening rate, meaning that when someone received an SMS, the chances of that person opening the SMS and reading the content was still very high.
Customers who have already registered for LTA’s e-services portal can always update their contact details on www.eservices.lta.com.fj .
