The Ministry of Economic Development has partnered with Traksolutions Belize to train municipal bodies and the Department of Transport on the usage of GPS tracking devices. These devices will be used to track patrol vehicles as they go about their duties - to make sure they are where they should be.
It's part of the Second Road Safety Project, with financing from the CDB, totalling four million Belize dollars. Now, it seems that if you want to talk both road safety, they might do well to throw in some speed guns and breathalyzer kits.
But...not there yet... but, yesterday, the CEO in the Ministry explained more about the fancy GPS trackers:
Dr Osmond Martinez, CEO, Ministry of Economic Development
"The tracking system is not only to track the location of whether the motorcycles, the ambulance, or the vehicles are, but it is also, as one of the main purpose to collect data, data that will help us to be more efficient and effective in terms of fuel consumption, the hours or the milage that is being put on the machines for maintenance purpose, security purpose, and at the same time to be more efficient in terms of response to any accident or to any needs that are being required from the officers."
"It's under the second road safety program and it is one that I believe is being guided to the data collection, to the effectiveness or the efficiencies in one, fuel consumption, and two, how best you can maximize the production and the usage of each unit that is being assigned to every officer in the transport department."
"The total cost is 4 million dollars, but it is not just for the tracking system, it includes six ambulances that have also been given away already, one of them actually to BERT. There are also six highway patrol vehicle, all for the department of transport, we also have 18 motorcycles, of which two went for each municipality and there are two project vehicles under the project, plus when we add everything including the tracking system, it comes up to a little bit over 4 million Belize dollars."
