The Corridor Trip Monitoring System (CTMS) is being progressively developed to facilitate trade, transport, and tourism in the Eastern and Southern African region beyond the immediate requirement of COVID-19.
This will be achieved through integration with the regional Transport Registers and Information Platform Systems (TRIPS) which is a switch that facilitates sharing of transport operator, vehicle, and driver details among Member/Partner States to facilitate regulation and law enforcement; and integration with Customs Management Systems for trade facilitation including pre-clearance, data sharing and risk management. CTMS was developed to facilitate the transit of essential goods that include food, fuel and medicines across borders in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa-East African Community-Southern African Development Community (COMESA-EAC-SADC) Tripartite region.
TRIPS and CTMS are being implemented under an €18 million Tripartite Transport and Transit Facilitation Programme funded by the European Union (EU) and the German Development Cooperation. The overall strategic objective of the TTTFP is to facilitate the development of a more competitive, integrated and liberalised regional road transport market in the tripartite region.
CTMS is being progressively developed through integration with Immigration systems, enabling the provision of advance driver, crew, and passenger information to immigration at borders and other ports of entry; and through integration with Cargo Tracking Systems such as the Regional Electronic Cargo and Driver Tracking Systems (RECDTS) of the EAC and several revenue authorities, for example in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Integration with other customs related systems to facilitate digitisation of certificates and other trade documents such Transit Guarantee and Electronic Certificate of Origin, and corridor performance management to provide a tool towards SMART corridors available to all corridor management institutions are also part of the progressive development of the CTMS.
The benefits of the CTMS are to reduce the travelling and transit times for persons and goods throughout the COMESA-EAC-SADC region in support of accelerated development and growth. The CTMS facilitates the implementation of SMART corridors by re-engineering border operations and procedures with the digitalisation of border protocols with the exchange of documents in an electronic format between the cross-border transport operator, traveler, and the border agencies.
CTMS benefits include Operator Journey Management, Corridor Performance Management, Tripartite Traveler Application, and customs and immigration management.
The operator journey management functionality on CTMS allows operators to visualise trips that their professional drivers, crew members and vehicles are undertaking.
Corridor Performance Management and Geographical Information System (GIS) based functionality is provided to Corridor Monitoring Institutions (CMIs). CMI officials and other policy makers will have access to de-personalised tracking information to monitor the performance of the regional trade corridor in terms of statistical analysis of border congestions, border performance and waiting times, average travel, and transit times on specific sections of the corridor, corridor utilisation to enable them to make informed interventions in the corridors.
The Tripartite Traveler Application provides World Health Organisation (WHO) compliant digital certification of health compliance of both disease testing and vaccination for international inter-operability. Laboratory integrations ensure the authenticity of disease test results and vaccination status for drivers, crew members and all travelers.
The planned integration of CTMS and Customs Management Systems (CMS) will enable law enforcement and customs officials at the border posts to inspect and release vehicles in a contactless manner. The objective is to establish a regional customs platform that integrates the CMSs of all Member States.
The requirements for Immigration entails capturing the details and obtaining approval for immigrants entering a Member State from a foreign country. The CTMS will integrate with existing immigration systems in the region to provide easy access to immigration documentation to border post officials via the CTMS handheld device.
