New Traffic Ticketing System Coming To Jamaica Soon

Bus driver Keron Brown displays his list of traffic tickets with fines amounting to $84,500. (Photos: Bryan Cummings)

Motorists wait outside the Police Traffic Department on Elletson Road, Kingston, to clear their outstanding traffic tickets, yesterday. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

THE Ministry of National Security is working closely with several agencies and ministries to design a new traffic ticketing system.

The new system, which will build on the gains of the system that was introduced in September 2010, will reduce the loopholes in the current system that allow for motorists with unpaid tickets to continue doing business with the Government.

Details of the new system were outlined in a Ministry Paper that was tabled in the House of Representatives this week by Security Minister Peter Bunting.

The other ministries involved are finance and planning; transport, works and housing; and justice, and they are working in collaboration with e-Gov Jamaica.

The new system will move the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to a fully digital platform. It will also add to the JCF’s crime-fighting capability through more secure and faster means of communication. Equipment is being cleared and the first phase of the upgrade will commence in the first quarter of 2014/15.

The Ministry Paper said the system will also benefit from amendments to the Road Traffic Act, which will, among other things, give motorists a slightly longer time than currently obtains, to settle tickets at the tax office as well as more options for paying traffic fines.

“It is expected that the revised proposal from e-Gov will be signed off during the first quarter of the 2014/15 fiscal year and a timetable for design, development and implementation agreed,” the Ministry Paper noted.

In the meantime, Cabinet has approved the upgrade of the Mobile Radio system used by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

“The cost of the expansion will be spread over three financial years, with the first payment having been made in 2013/14,” the Ministry Paper says.

source: jamaica observer