Senator promises to lay foundation for smart transportation

The Chairman Senate Committee on Land Transport,

Ashafa made this known while delivering his goodwill message at the opening session of the Transportation Growth Initiative’s 2 International Conference themed “Smart Mobility Africa; Issues, challenges and opportunities”.

Ashafa who was also the chairman of the occasion, said “one of the priority bills of the Bukola Saraki led 8 Senate is the National Transport Commission Bill which the Joint Senate Committee on Land Transport, Marine Transport and Aviation that I chair has just concluded work on. All things being equal, we expect to lay our report before the senate this week.”

Speaking further he said, “When this Bill is eventually passed into law, it would establish a multi-modal transport regulator, which would amongst others conduct economic and safety oversight regulation, drive the National Transport Policy of Government etc. I am therefore confident that we have already laid the legislative groundwork for the creation of a smart multi-modal transport sector in Nigeria.”

Ashafa also stressed that in the age of information technology, the time had come for government policy to be geared towards intelligent integrated transport systems and intelligent traffic management among others.

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The Senator also harped on the opportunities being created by ride sharing applications which connect car owners to commuters and concluded that these sort of applications must be developed through a PPP approach for every form of public transportation.

The opening session of the program also had in attendance other dignitaries in the transport industry, including Dr. Aminu Musa Yusuf, the Director General of Nigerian Institute of transport Technology and also the Current Chairman of the Transportation Growth Initiative, Dr. Mrs. Anthonia Ekpa the Director Road Transport and Mass Transit in the Ministry of Transportation who represented the Honourable Minister for Transport, Rt. Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the representative of the Corp marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Asst Corp Marshal Kayode Olagunju and Mr. Tunde Adeola who represented of the Managing Director of Sterling Bank, amongst others.