The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) is eyeing to conduct pilot-testing of its electronic ticketing system in three major ports in the country that include Port of Matnog in Sorsogon and Port of Batangas.
In the case of Port of Matnog, PPA General Manager Jay Daniel Santiago said it is the Provincial Government of Sorsogon which requested for its implementation due to the huge volume of passengers that come in especially during long breaks and holidays.
He said the same problem occurs in the Port of Batangas and in Port of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro.
“Those will probably be the three terminals that we will test within the year,” said Santiago.
The e-ticketing system is one of the two full digitization efforts that they want to implement for 2023 aside from the Trusted Operator Program – Container Registry and Monitoring System (TOP-CRMS), which uses technology for up-to-date container tracking allowing customers, carriers, freight forwarders, and shippers to access the status of their cargoes and containers.
Santiago said it is the PPA’s solution to ease the burden of passengers especially during long school and work breaks.
The TOP-CRMS, on the other hand, is expected to keep a registry and monitor all inbound shipping containers that will track every foreign-owned container’s location and movement using the industry- accepted data interchange formats through encrypted channels.
Santiago said the PPA is now in the final phase of the review and test of the e-ticketing system with the system developer.
“The electronic ticketing system is part of our big electronic management system. It aims to assist our kababayan from spending a lot of time in long lines just to purchase a ticket in our ports,” Santiago said.
“What we want to address through this project is the usual long lines that passengers have to endure whenever they go to their hometowns or go on a vacation to take advantage of long breaks. We feel how stressful it is and how tiring it is on the part of the passengers,” he added.
Santiago said coordination is already being done with the shipping lines in connection with the e-ticketing implementation.
He said some of the shipping lines have already started their own online platform for booking.
“For shipping lines, we have agreed that they will be allowed to continue with their online platform as long as it is integrated with the PPA ticketing system at no cost to them,” said Santiago.
And for the shipping companies that are yet to have their own online platform for booking of passengers, he said they could enroll in the PPA’s e-ticketing system: “They need not spend to put up their own system.”
He said the e-ticketing system will also ensure safety in travel as the program would lead to proper management of passenger and cargo limits.
“Our focus is on proper scheduling, and that proper number of seats would be sold and to make that to manage the weight limits and capacity of the ships to prevent accidents,” said Santiago.