Up and running in Pakistan

Inspection station in Lahore opened.

On Saturday 23 July, the Chief Minister of Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, inaugurated the new Vehicle Inspection and Certification System (VICS). The system is being built and run by Opus Inspection (Pvt) Ltd, and the first station has been opened in the provincial capital, Lahore. By 2017, the system will be expanded to cover the whole of Punjab province, and in all Opus will build and run 39 stations of various sizes.

“This is a major programme in many respects”, said the Chief Minister at the opening ceremony. “It entails an entirely new set up for checking vehicle road safety and exhaust emissions. Fatalities and personal injuries due to defective vehicles are a tragedy that simply must not be allowed to continue.”

VICS will be implemented and run by Opus under a 20-year contract.

“We’re mighty impressed by the Punjabi government’s commitment and glad we’re able to support the authorities in this issue,” said Magnus Greko, President and CEO of Opus Group, during the inauguration.

VICS is the first company in the world to apply RFID technology in a vehicle inspection context. Inspected vehicles get a sticker, which is affixed to the windscreen. The sticker has an embedded RFID tag containing all the information about the vehicle, and can be read remotely.

Read more about VICS and watch the video here.