Over 8,000 passengers on the Abuja-Kaduna train route have accessed the e-ticketing service provided by the Nigerian Railway Corporation within three days into the test running of the portal.
On January 13, 2021, the Federal Government announced the commencement of the test run of e-ticketing on the route and pledged to officially begin the initiative.
A statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by the media aide to the Minister of Transportation, Taiye Edeni, stated 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, 2021, 3,398 passengers accessed the platform,” it added.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who announced the test run of the e-ticketing process, stated that the government would fully inaugurate the service this week.
The train service, which was inaugurated for commercial operations in 2016, had faced the challenge of racketeering and this had led to extortion of passengers by racketeers.
Amaechi said the Federal Government initiated the e-ticketing platform in order to resolve the challenges and expressed hopes that the e-ticketing service would eradicate touts at the train stations.
However, the purchase of tickets at the train stations was still in place to enable those who could not access it online to purchase their tickets over the counter at the train stations.
The official inauguration of the e-ticketing platform would be done on Wednesday after a week of test run.
Passengers had expressed satisfaction with the initiative, as they urged the Federal Government to ensure that it was sustainable.
Punch