By Roland Ekama
Apparently determined to ensure seamless flow of vehicular movement in and out of the two seaports in Lagos State,Truck Transit Parks Limited (TTP) operators of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) electronic call-up system, has indicated interest to engage terminal operators in traffic management as part of its long term plans .
TTP also reiterated its commitment to understudy the port concessionaires in Nigerian maritime space on the
need to standardise heavy duty trucks and barge operations .
Bolaji Akerele, Head of Corporate Development TTP Limited , who disclosed this at briefing in Lagos recently, affirmed that the traffic management firm would further move beyond the port gates to understudy activities and movement of cargoes within the terminals at Lagos Ports Complex LPC and Tin Can Island Port Complex TICPC respectively.
Akerele disclosed that the strategy was aimed to further reduce the waiting time of trucks within the ports entry points.
In line with intermodal system of transportation, he stated that as a traffic solution service providers, TTP will engage the concessionaires even at the quayside where ships offload cargoes and to possibly fine-tune how the process can be faster for consignments to exit the ports , thus improve the turnaround time for vessels at berth.
Speaking earlier, Chief Operations Officer of Truck Transit Park (TTP) Limited, Mr Temidayo Adeboye stated main reason why foreign vessels do not allow barges to berth alongside them to drop empty containers was due to the outdated state of the barges.
He said that even when a laden vessel comes, she has no space to drop the cargoes, which
according to him, 60% of what is occupying the space at quayside of most of the terminal operators is empty containers and export containers trying to be loaded on the ship.
The COO said “The empty containers ought to be brought by barges which should anchor alongside the ship and offload directly into the ship. But here, we have a challenge, none of the barges in Nigeria meets international standards that would allow a ship to allow them berth alongside”
“There has to be a lot of investments that would go into that sector for us to achieve. If NPA starts driving it and people see the seriousness, they can now collate their funds and bring in world class barges that the shipping lines would allow Longside and offload directly into them”
“If we are able to do this, we would have solved a major problem at the port because the traffic going to the port would be reduced, while the capacity of the port to receive more imports would be enhanced”
“We are planning to work it out with NPA, such that empty containers would no longer have to return to the port by road”
“This is because 50% of the traffic entering the port is empty containers trying to enter the port.” he stated.
Adeboye said that out of the 76,000 trucks registered on the platform, only 17,000 met the Minimum Safety Standards (MSS) put in place by the NPA.
Chief Operations Officer, assured that in the next phase of registration for trucks, there would be an improvement in the number of trucks with the MSS standards.
Speaking, Adeboye said “There would be an improvement in the quality of trucks accessing the port, but it would not happen overnight.
“The first week we started ETO , we had 9,000 trucks registered on the platform with about 1,000 users. However, within a month, we had over 60,000 trucks registered with about 8,000 users on the application.
“The number later grew to about 76,000 trucks, adding that “NPA has been doing MSS on the trucks accessing the ports, and I can tell you that out of the 76,000 trucks registered on the Eto, only 17,000 can access the port with their MSS.
Caption:
Bolaji Akerele, Head of Corporate Development TTP Limited, (L) and Chief Operations Officer of Truck Transit Park (TTP) Limited, Mr Temidayo Adeboye during the press briefing held in Lagos recently.
