City of Cape Town's Transportation Reporting System (TRS) a tool for ITP Reporting and operating licence management

Abstract

Paper presented at the 31st Annual Southern African Transport Conference 9-12 July 2012 "Getting Southern Africa to Work", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

In March 2010, the City of Cape Town put out a tender seeking assistance with the collection, capture, analysis and presentation of transport data for the update of the 2007 Integrated Transport Plan (ITP). The essential aim of the project is to equip the City with an integrated and consolidated system for storing and managing all information required to compile their ITP and to provide additional management reporting. Historically, the City had many separate sub-systems which housed its transportation data. In brief, the City had problems in handling and managing their data due to differing levels of technology and database platforms. Furthermore, other difficulties experienced included extending these existing systems to accommodate new functionality and reporting ability as well as these systems not being able to easily integrate, report or consolidate any information for management review. Within one year of development, the Transportation Reporting System (TRS) has given City officials the ability to improve the management of their data and the ability to respond quicker and more efficiently to various enquiries. TRS is able to make survey data and reports available within a week of field surveys being completed, in addition to the data being protected and controlled in a transparent and auditable manner. Data is now easily accessed via the internet and automatic reports are generated to assist with the compilation of the CPTR.