Babajide Okeowo
In a bid to make transportation easier and safer in the country, Minister of State Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki, has disclosed that the ministry of Transportation and the Nigeria Institute of Transport Technology (NITT) will develop a database for transporters and other stakeholders in the transport sector.
In addition to the database, she said it is important for transport companies to have details of passengers boarding their vehicles.
She made this known in Abuja during the Annual Retreat of the Nigeria Transportation Commissioners’ Forum, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Transportation with the theme ‘Developing And Fostering Synergy In The Management Of Sustainable Transport Policies.
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The Minister also hinted that driving schools will be established across the country in order to train and retrain drivers.
She said the initiative will reduce the rates of accidents on the roads, adding; “We are aggressively promoting the use of technology within the road transport sector. This starts from the aforementioned licensing and registration regime to collecting passenger manifests, real-time trip information, electronic payments systems, etc.
“This will go a long way towards delivering efficient transport services and is also a key element to improving the security of road transport. The NITT has this year embarked on a National Transport Data Bank project which will be the beginning of developing our national intelligent transport infrastructure.
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“Considering the security situation in the country with Boko Haram and all sorts of gadgets that are used for different things like bombs, it is vital that we have database and passenger information on everything that travels. So, technology is key, it makes things easier and safer.”
Highlighting some of the challenges confronting the transport sector, she said: “The road transport sector is beset by a myriad of challenges of weak regulatory environment and poor enforcement leading to a chaotic road transport industry, poor safety and security on roads leading to loss of lives and property and high transportation costs for people and goods.
“Limited professionalization of workforce, casualisation of employment for large numbers of road transport workers, poor compensation, low job security, low government revenues captured from the road transport sector and resultant low impact on GDP.”
