Control rooms at the road agency (API), the interior ministry and the toll authority have 7 days to share data, align how they communicate and write clear rules for dangerous weather on the roads, the transport ministry said. The task follows a meeting of the agencies that minister Georgi Peev called at the ministry.
It follows two major pile-ups yesterday on the Trakia motorway near the Zimnitsa junction, close to Yambol. In thick fog, 86 vehicles in total crashed into each other. Twelve people died and nearly 50 were injured.
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Peev cut short his participation in COP31 and called an emergency meeting of the expert group on road safety reform. The interior, regional development and public works, health, justice, and education and science ministries attended. So did the State Agency for Road Traffic Safety, the Financial Supervision Commission, the Customs Agency, API and the toll authority.
The ministry says the agencies work badly together and have no automatic way to act before the situation on the road becomes critical. At the meeting they discussed how API's situation centre, the toll authority and the interior ministry's national road safety coordination centre can share data.
The heads of the three control rooms must find out what data each one has, link their communication channels and divide up responsibilities. The aim is for the services to act early in fog, snow, strong wind and other difficult conditions, rather than wait until people call 112.
"The most dangerous thing here is to have information and not know what to do with it. That is worse than having no information," Peev said.
The minister thinks the agencies must stop acting separately and build a process that works, because the safety system has its own rules. He insisted that agreeing on decisions must become simpler, so staff on duty can react fast without needless red tape.
The ministry will therefore review laws and regulations and issue orders giving duty teams more powers. By next week, the agencies in charge must submit specific proposals on data sharing, common rules for action and who is responsible for what.
The ministry is also considering stricter checks on regional road departments and the firms that maintain roads.