3,750 public vehicles now being tracked via GPS — minister

AMMAN — A total of 3,750 out of 5,000 government vehicles to be included in the first stage of the GPS tracking project are now in the system, Transport Minister Ayman Hatahet said on Thursday.

Briefing Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour and a ministerial team during their visit to the Transport Ministry on progress in the first stage of the project, Hatahet said 80 to 90 per cent of this stage is complete, and that the project will be fully ready in a month from now, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The public vehicle tracking project will enable live monitoring of the location, taking note of any violations of speed limits, changing routes or using the vehicles outside working hours, through installed GPS trackers.

There are around 20,000 public vehicles in the Kingdom. 

The project will help increase productivity, reduce operational costs and cut fuel consumption, according to the Traklink and General Computers and Electronics Co., which won the bid to install the systems in partnership with Zain Jordan.

Zain expects the maintenance cost of public vehicles to be cut by 15-20 per cent after project implementation. 

According to official figures, maintenance costs amounted to JD39.1 million in 2014 along with fuel costs.

In May last year, the Legislation and Opinion Bureau amended the organisational structure of the Transport Ministry to enable it to set up a special department to control the use of government vehicles.

According to the amended by-law, a special department will be established with the aim of tracking and controlling public vehicles.