Experts Call for Full Automation of Motor Vehicle Administration

Emma Okonji

Technology experts have stressed the need for full automation of motor vehicle administration in Nigeria, in order to address the inefficiency in traffic management and improve safety in road transportation.  

They said this at a recent stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos, designed to address the challenges of road transportation in Nigeria.

Deputy Managing Director, Courteville Business Solutions Plc, Mr. Wale Sonaike, advocated the full automation of Motor Vehicle Administration in the country to firm up efficiency in traffic management, improve safety in road transportation and reduce the spate of insecurity on our roads.

Sonaike stressed on the need for the automation of the transport sector owing to the rising cases of fake documentations in Driver’s Licence procurement, fake vehicle documentations, falsification of records and extortions of perceived traffic offenders by enforcement agents.

Sonaike said his company took the lead with the innovation of a mobile hand held device known as AutoReg, the first in the country, used for collating transport data that has helped state governments and federal government agencies in automating every aspect of motor vehicle administrations.

According to him, “Our vision as a company is to be a globally accepted business solutions company supplying unique services for the Transport industry with locally developed innovations. We made an incursion into the public sector through the reengineering of the motor vehicle administration process through our flagship product known as the AutoReg. The application was pioneered in Lagos State through the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA).”

Courteville AutoReg is currently in 22 states, which according to him, is an evidence of wide spread adoption, stressing that, “for better collaborative efforts, the various states where we work have consented to data upload to our

National Vehicle Information System (NVIS) managed by FRSC for ease of management, verifications and enforcement of compliance on our roads.”

Another tech expert from Imo State, Fidel Ambrose, a affirmed that offenders were easily captured using the AutoReg application either for expired documents, traffic issues or for non-compliance offences. “It is worthy to note that the AutoReg platform has become a veritable platform to recover stolen vehicles as well as eliminating double vehicle registration and confirmation of vehicle chassis along international standards before registrations are carried out,” Ambrose said.

An Abuja based transporter, Mallam Dahiru Saliu, said: “The AutoReg application is apt and has been in the market for over 15 years, suggesting a high level of acceptability and relevance.”

Fielding questions from Journalists, Sonaike, said: “Hi-tech is the way to go as being deployed in developed countries for similar purposes. The digitalisation of surveillance and deployment of tracking technology is the right way to go. There is also the need for proper digital registration of all vehicles both for the private and commercial ones.”