Unhappy with the menace of traffic on the roads into and out of Lagos, the Association of Tourist Boat Operators and Water Transport of Nigeria (ATBOWATON) has said that it has started plans for the construction of barges that can be able to carry at least 30 vehicles across the water at different parts of the state.
The association disclosed this recently in an interview with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos.
Speaking during the interview, the National President of the association, Mr. Ganiyu Balogun, said that he started the idea of moving vehicles through barges across the water as far back as 10 years ago.
“Talking about moving vehicles by barges, I will tell you that, I have been moving vehicles in barges before some of these terminals started. I started moving vehicles by barges over 10 years ago and I move cars from VI here to places like Ikoyi, Ikorodu and all that. I first made the barge of six vehicle carrier, later I upgraded to a 10 vehicles carrier barge”
According to him, most of the vehicles he moved were normally people who might be going somewhere and they do not have the patience to stay in traffic.
“What we do is when the traffic is heavy; we move peoples’ cars through our barges across the water. We move between 200-300 vehicles per day. A movement that would have taken someone two to three hours ,under 10 minutes the person is where he/she wants to go through our barges. We do not carry Tokunbo cars what we do is people who don’t want to stay in the traffic will drive into our office here and we move them to where they want to go through our barges. So the barges carry both the car and passengers in the car. So it saves them time a lot”
He also promised that he is working towards building a bigger barge that can carry more than 30 vehicles at once.
“So my next plan as soon as I am comfortable and once the environment is conducive and convenient enough, my next target is to build the one that can take a minimum of 21 and maximum of 30 vehicles”, he concluded.
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