Renewal of vehicle particulars, roadworthiness certificates and to even ascertaining the authenticity of existing documents can now be done with the launch of a platform called ‘Plate Detect’, which is expected to address vehicle documentation in Lagos and Nasswara states.
Plate Detect, an innovation of Soft Alliance, is said to create convenience for getting vehicle particulars, and avoiding paying fines as well as getting embarrassed by policemen and various agencies when a car owner is found with incomplete particulars. This can now be seamlessly done with the aid of technology.
“The platform was brought in place to get rid of the frustration of being flagged down by policemen due to wrong papers or incomplete particulars,” said, Saidat Adebule, product specialist on the Plate Detect team.
According to Adegbule, the three core objectives of the platform are to verify the registration status of vehicles, vehicle insurance, and roadworthiness certificates of vehicles.
Tunji Adeleke, operations manager, stated that there have been collaborations with various agencies to access the details of vehicles in order to verify their status. He also stated that the platform helps to pay fines, bills for renewals of vehicle particulars and also the added feature of an auto-reminder to remind one of the documents expiring soon.
Ayodeji Lawrence, deputy director, Solutions Delivery said that the platform also allows for the renewal of particulars before they actually expire, all at a car owner’s convenience, by simply using the website and putting in the vehicle’s registration number.
Lawrence also highlighted partnerships with some insurance companies and various agencies pertaining to vehicle particulars validation and more to come on board as they progress.
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He also said that the platform is secure as they do not have access to personal databases of individuals except the plate number of the vehicle being used, as they operate on ALPR, a system that can identify the vehicle owner by using a license plate number and no other personal information is being given out.
He added that Plate Detect offers the best price rate among its competitors and verification of document/renewal is gotten within 5-7 minutes of registering. Documents are delivered to the e-mail provided and can be printed subsequently from the website when needed.
On his part, Babatunde Ojumu, director of technical services, said there are other services to come such as clocking of time, video analytics, identification of offenders, etc as more collaboration comes to play.
On the issue of collaboration, Lawrence stated that the platform can’t detect stolen vehicles for now, because there are no databases to back that up and when collaborations with various agencies such as the police, to have such a database come into effect, such other features will be released. On a final note, Lawrence added that collaboration with the government and other agencies has been good and more to come as they expand beyond the two states they are operating, Lagos and Nasarawa states, and by the second quarter of the year, the service would have spread to other parts of the country.
