The management of Truck Transit Park Limited has revealed an investment of between N3.8 billion and N4.2 billion in its electronic call-up system since its launch in 2021.

The company’s Co-Founder and CEO, Jama Onwubuariri, disclosed this figure during a leadership session with journalists in Lagos on Thursday.

At the event themed ‘From Gridlock to Growth: Re-imagining Ports Logistics in Nigeria,’ the Co-Founder and CEO of Truck Transit Park Limited, Onwubuariri, disclosed the company’s significant investment in its digital solutions.

He revealed that TTP has spent between N3.8 billion and N4.2 billion on its electronic call-up system since 2021, with an additional N200 million allocated to providing the accompanying e-tags to truckers free of charge.

“The e-tag solution, which we agreed to deploy for free, cost us about N200m to deploy. So, from 2021 to now, we have invested up to N3.8bn to N4.2bn across the board,” Onwubuariri stated.

He reported that the platform has scheduled 3.38 million truck movements over four years and nine months.

Onwubuariri also identified the country’s porous license plate registration system as the root cause of illegal plate duplication by truckers at the ports.

“It is because of the porous nature of plate number administration in Nigeria. We don’t have a single authority that is responsible for producing number plates. And also, drivers seem to have this ability to go and use either another person’s number plate or to duplicate their own number plate or even to produce a number plate that does not exist and use it for the purpose of registering their vehicles or their trucks on Eto,” he said.

To address this, Onwubuariri said the platform has developed an electronic tagging system that provides each truck with a permanent digital identity.

“That digital identity is also tamper-proof. So, when it is put on a truck, if you remove it, it means that that truck’s identity has been damaged. That truck will not be able to operate on this system. It’s like removing the brain box of your vehicle. That vehicle will not function. So, we have developed the e-tag system. And since 2023, we have been waiting for approval by the regulator for that e-tag to be deployed,” he stressed.

He explained that once the e-tags are deployed, trucks will be unable to change their digital identity by using another vehicle’s plate number or creating a fake one to register on the system.

Onwubuariri also highlighted the firm’s “ETO Interchange Transaction Number.”

He explained that this system mandates a terminal operator to only service the specific truck it has invited, preventing unauthorized trucks from being serviced.