In addition to achieving the long-awaited milestone of bringing Apapa traffic under control as at Monday, July 5, 2021, without presidential visit or military deployment, Trucks Transit Parks Ltd (TTP) has promised to sustain free flow of traffic within Apapa metropolis in order to increase port operational efficiency.
According to TTP, having worked in Apapa for close to four months, it has been able to identify six threats to effective deployment of call-up on port bound trucks.
Kamar Bakrin, chairman of Trucks Transit Parks Ltd, said that as at Monday, July 5, 2021, that TTP in conjunction with its partners, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Lagos State Government, has been able to bring Apapa traffic under control.
According to him, inadequate road infrastructure, insufficient access control infrastructure and non-compliant truck park operators that release trucks out of schedule, were some of the threats hindering effective deployment of call-up.
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Bakrin listed other factors to include queue jumping by some truck drivers, rogue enforcement agents and inefficient terminal operators.
“By using a combination of technology, physical infrastructure and stakeholder collaboration, we have increased and optimised existing infrastructure; stopped park owners from releasing trucks from their parks indiscriminately; neutralise truck drivers ability to access the port without first being in a park, and following the queue, and making public, the manifest of trucks due to enter the ports daily,” he said.
While enjoining government to fix the problematic access roads, Bakrin assured that TTP would going forward determine the daily variable truck needs of terminal operators to know the number of trucks to release from the parks to avoid queue on the road.
Remi Ogungbemi, Chairman of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), who noted there has been a bit of change in the traffic situation in Apapa since this last Monday, said there is a need to not only sustain but also improve on it.
“It is not yet time to celebrate because we still see trucks queue on the road and that is not the way it should be. We are looking forward to a situation whereby it is only trucks that are called and expected by each terminal that would be called to come out. Those trucks would go straight to where they are needed without stopping on the road. Trucks Transit Parks should not release a certain number of trucks at the same time on the road because a terminal said it can handle it,” Ogungbemi said on the phone.
According to him, releasing trucks has to be bit by bit in line with what the terminal can accommodate. “We are also looking forward to a time when truck drivers would receive the go signal on their phones or emails and no truck would move without being called to move.”
On extortion, Tony Anakebe, a renowned maritime analyst, said the enforcement team has become a clog in the wheel of progress of port operations because they are on the road for their self-interest.
“We believe that when the electronic call-up becomes effective that Apapa environment would have no need for any enforcement team that would end up creating multiple checkpoints to extort people. No matter how good any policy is, they would find a way to manipulate it for their interest,” he said.
