The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) of Kenya has partnered with Vertiv, a global provider of digital infrastructure solutions, and local partner Encapsulated East Africa, to deploy a new integrated modular data centre solution.
This marks a significant milestone in NTSA’s digital transformation strategy, aimed at modernising the Transport Integrated Management System (TIMS) to improve service delivery and meet the growing demands of citizens.
he NTSA data centre modernisation project also led to improved customer service, with Kenyan citizens receiving a much faster and more accurate response to their inquiries, and with users now able to track service application status online, 24 hours a day. The TIMS system went from attempting to manage a queue of 60,000 drivers waiting for their applications to process, to zero now waiting in the queue as applications are now processed upon submission.
“Modernising our systems was crucial to meet vehicle owners’ expectations and improve service delivery to citizens. Our ICT department faced continuous challenges maintaining the previous system, we had to transform the way business is done,” said Nashon Kondiwa, deputy director of ICT and innovation at NTSA. “The Vertiv solution eliminates the need to deal with multiple suppliers and integration challenges, and its compactness makes it an ideal fit in our current facility. With access control, CCTV, environmental monitoring, sensors, power, and cooling pre-integrated, installation and management became much easier and quicker.”
The Vertiv SmartRow™ solution, selected after a competitive bidding process, addresses critical challenges faced by the NTSA’s previous data infrastructure. The self-contained system integrates cooling, power distribution, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), fire suppression, and environmental monitoring. These improvements have not only increased the reliability and uptime of NTSA’s services but have also drastically reduced energy consumption and operational costs
The new system has significantly streamlined the process of vehicle registration, licence renewals, and ownership transfers, allowing citizens to receive faster and more accurate services. In fact, the upgrade has eliminated the lengthy queues that plagued the old system. Nashon Kondiwa, NTSA’s Deputy Director of ICT and Innovation, highlighted that the system’s reliability has led to an eightfold increase in licence renewals, with over 80,000 processed each month, compared to 10,000 previously.
This deployment is also a crucial part of Kenya’s wider digitalisation efforts, driving economic efficiency and improving the quality of public services. With Vertiv’s advanced technology, NTSA now benefits from real-time system monitoring, ensuring continuous service and better customer experiences for millions of Kenyan citizens.
