The EAC Regional Electronic Cargo and Driver Tracking System (RECDTS) has registered 113,000 drivers and 70% of them have received at least one digital #COVID19 certificate on the mobile-based application, Trademark East Africa (TMEA) announced through its Twitter account.
Since its launch in 2020, RECDTS is currently monitoring the movement of the truck drivers across the East Africa region in a move that has significantly reduced delays at the border crossing points.
The App was launched in September 2020 by the EAC Secretariat in partnership with TMEA and the European Union, which has been key in the fight against Covid-19, especially among cross-border traders.
During the initial days of the Covid -19 pandemic, truck drivers were super spreaders and because of their cross-border movements, they faced many challenges to move around the region since EAC had not adopted common protocols on how to deal with Covid -19 pandemic.
The RECDTS is part of TMEA’s $23m Safe Trade Emergency Facility that seeks to support governments in the region to undertake critical measures along the transport and trade routes.
The system enables digital verification of transit documents and travel authorization by law enforcement, customs, and immigration at border crossings and other strategic locations along the transit corridors. It also facilitates intuitive analyses of data and surveillance of mobility related to cross-border movements for better management of the pandemic in relation to cross-border mobile population segments.
This system rides on the Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS) platform for tracking cargo movement along the corridors, which previously lacked a component of tracking individuals, which has become necessary in the wake of the Covid -19 pandemic.
By clicking to start the journey, the truck driver’s mobile phone serves as a tracking gadget and will be visible to command centers until the end of the journey. The command centers share information in actual time.
