Eto App: TTP Ready to Dispense Solution to Lagos Ports’ Traffic Challenges

Mr Jama Onwubuariri, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Trucks Transit Parks Limited, TTPL

Contrary to the fallacy making the rounds as contrived by some despicable elements about the serviceability and effectiveness of the pioneering innovation of the Eto app, the app is still top-notched as ever, and efforts are at a feverish pitch by the Nigerian Port Authority, NPA, to ensure sanity and ease of truck movement within the port premises.

According to the copyright owner of Eto app, Trucks Transit Parks, TTP, the quick scan conducted on the traffic situation at the Apapa Wharf-Tincan axis revealed six factors were responsible for the recent challenges causing gridlock along the port access roads.

The following were enumerated as responsible for the traffic chaos. First, (1.) the transferability and interchangeability of tickets and truck profiles among truckers.

The second reason as elicited by TTP, (2.) was the truck’s diversion along the port corridor in search of a second-leg job. The third of its findings (3.) was the trucks crisscrossing between terminals within the ports.

Other findings were (4.) the inefficiency of terminals and fifth reason (5.) the abysmally low number of trucks admitted and serviced daily, as well as the sixth factor in which its culpability was laid on the doorstep of (6.) park operators colluding with truckers to leave-pregate trucks by proxy.

The good news however is that TTP had reiterated its capability to put in total check those factors causing menace on the roads to Apapa cum Tincan ports.

In a media statement by TTP and signed by Nancy Nnamdi, Corporate Communications Manager, it affirmed thus, “As variously communicated to all stakeholders, TTP has developed robust digital solutions to these challenges and now awaiting approval from NPA to deploy them”.

The statement also described as misinformation the notion as expressed in some quarters that truck booking was suspended for one month.

Rather, TTP explained that “the booking of trucks to parks was temporarily put on hold for about seven (7) days, and not one month.

According to TTP, the seven-day halt as directed by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), was to facilitate the rapid decongestion of trucks causing gridlocks along the port corridor and efficiently decongest the trucks waiting in the parks and pre-gates to access the ports.

The transportation intelligence company, TTP, added that the “decision was communicated to relevant stakeholders, including truck drivers and transporters”.

On the comment credited to the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, that the body called for the scrapping of the Eto call-up system, TTP said, it was the opinion of one person as NAGAFF never made such a call as a corporate body.

On the protest at Lagos ports against the Eto system, TTP said it smacked of a misunderstanding of the system’s operational procedures, or outright mischief.

Also, the statement debunked the rumor making the rounds that Truck Transit Parks (TTP) gives NPA 10% of monthly returns. TTP said the claim “is entirely false. The electronic call-up system deployed for Apapa and Tincan ports by TTP is monitored and regulated by the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, and such misinformation can lead to misinterpretation of the dynamics involved,” the media statement claimed.

TTP claimed the Eto system had consistently contributed to operational efficiency at the ports, played a vital role, and collaborated with the NPA in the development, review, and update of standard operating procedures that had improved the process and turnaround time for cargo evacuation at the port, truck routing, and mapping of truck parks to destinations/terminals in the port.

The media statement noted that “over the past 34 months, Ètò has processed about 1.7 million trucks’ entry/exit of port and non-port-bound trucks, significantly reducing traffic gridlock challenges along the Apapa and Tincan port corridor

TTP reiterated that “the Eto app is functioning as designed, and the measures in place aim to ensure sanity and ease of movement within the port premises”.