The Department of Land Transport (DLT) has a mission on the administration of systems and regulations of land transport by managing and controlling for compliance of laws and regulations, as well as coordinating and planning the connection with other transport systems to ensure that the land transport system is flexible, convenient, fast, and safe. The Department of Land Transport’s vision is to be an innovative organization in managing and controlling the road transport system with high quality and safety.
Mr. Cheep Nomsian said that the Automotive Engineering Bureau has the main responsibility on the automotive standards by applying the United Nations (UN) standards as a guideline for developing automotive standards and educating transport operators in Thailand. The Department of Land Transport, therefore, has cooperated with the agencies that have expertise in the field of automotive standards and testing.
The Department of Land Transport has a policy to urgently develop the automotive standards for trucks and buses to prevent and reduce unexpected accidents. It is clear from the accident records and empirical evidence from the media on the daily accidents that severe accidents occur when the trucks are crashed into by other vehicles or buses with understrergth structure overturn.
These tragedies are consequences of, the trucks not having protective equipments to reduce the severity at the side and rear, as well as inadequate design of bus structure.
The Automotive Engineering Bureau, DLT, therefore, had cooperated with MTEC on the project of “The preparation of the standard design of the protective equipment for the sides and rear the vehicle used for transporting animals and items” and “The study on the design of the bus structure according to the rollover safety standards” by applying the requirements of the United Nations as a guideline.
Mr. Cheep Nomsian said that in order to put law enforcement into practice, all stakeholders must be involved from the beginning. For both projects that Department of Land Transport had cooperated with MTEC, representatives from the association of truck and bus body builders, transport operators, and other stakeholders had been invited as the project committees in order to communicate with the members, as well as provide critical and useful information for the project and the promulgation of the law.
As MTEC is an organization with well respected research team the Department of Land Transport had cooperated with MTEC on law enforcement to ensure vehicle safety on the road by assigning an engineering team to work with MTEC research team. MTEC research team had given the Department of Land Transport very good suggestions. The team greatly appreciate working with MTEC, and the results are in line with the operation plan and time. However, there were some difficulties due to the COVID-19 situation but both teams had efficiently worked together to solve the problems.
Lastly, the Department of Land Transport wants MTEC to spread awareness about the side and rear protective equipment of the trucks and the structure standards to the entrepreneurs and general public, as well as increase MTEC’s ability to become an automotive testing unit conforming to international standards to support the operations of the Department of Land Transport in law enforcement.