By Ignatius Ushie
Over 8,000 passengers on the Abuja-Kaduna train route have accessed the e-ticketing just three days into the test running of the portal.
This was revealed in a statement made available to Transport Day and signed by Taiye Elebiyo Edeni, Media Assistant to the Honorable Minister of Transport.
The Federal Government had on Wednesday, January 13 announced the commencement of the test run of e-ticketing on the route and pledged to officially begin the initiative. The statement noted that on the first day of the test booking, 1,174 passengers used the platform to purchase train tickets, on Thursday 3,479 passengers accessed the platform while on Friday, January 15, 3,398 passengers accessed the platform.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who announced the e-ticketing stated that the government would fully inaugurate the service this week. Recall that the train service which was inaugurated for commercial operations in 2016 had faced the challenge of racketeering which had led to extortion of passengers.
Amaechi, however, initiated the e-ticketing platform as a way forward in resolving the challenges and hoping that the e-ticketing service would eradicate touts at the train stations. However, purchasing tickets at the train stations is still in place to enable those who cannot access it online to purchase tickets over the counter at the train stations.
The official launching of the E-Ticketing platform will be done on Wednesday, January 20 after a week of test running, the statement noted.
