Even as a consortium of private sector operators which include the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), and Road Transport Employers Association (RETRAN) says it has procured a parcel of land along Badagry expressway as truck park to ease the chaotic transport situation around the ports in Lagos, especially along the Apapa Oshodi expressway, a maritime expert and Chief Executive Officer of Eyis Resources Limited, Mr. Lucky Amiwero has said that the truck park may not solve the traffic problems.
Even as a consortium of private sector operators which include the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), and Road Transport Employers Association (RETRAN) says it has procured a parcel of land along Badagry expressway as truck park to ease the chaotic transport situation around the ports in Lagos, especially along the Apapa Oshodi expressway, a maritime expert and Chief Executive Officer of Eyis Resources Limited, Mr. Lucky Amiwero has said that the truck park may not solve the traffic problems.
Amiwero in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos said that the permanent solution to the Apapa traffic is for holding bays to be constructed close to the port where trucks can stay before going in to pick or discharge containers at the port.
With the acquisition of a 5000 trucks space, Amiwero said that trucks that want to pick consignments from the port will still have to come and queue at the port entrances before they are called in.
"A truck park is just a place you park trucks, you need an holding bay, there is a difference between a trailer park and a holding bay; a holding bay is a place where trailers will come and stay and exit into the port", he explained.
"We need a holding bay because we have five ports where trucks always hang around before going into the port".
"At the holding bay, trucks can stay for three to five hours before they go into the port, but at the truck park, you can stay there as long as you can, as long you are paying for the place per day", he added.
Amiwero stressed that the five major ports in Nigeria; Tin Can, Apapa port, Lillypond, PTML, and KLT terminals are all clustered together around Lagos, using the same routes, but none is having a holding bay.
According to him, to successfully put an end to the menace caused by petroleum tankers and trailers on Apapa port roads, three ministers of the Federal Government need to strategies and consult experts. The ministers according to him are: Ministers of Transport, Petroleum, and Minister of Works.
He advised that the tanker drivers and their associations be adequately sensitized and must be carried along on the use of the new park.
"Even if you build the truck park and you don't enforce it on the drivers, it is going to lie fallow" Amiwero stated.
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