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The Philippine Ports Authority has awarded the P499.898-million contract for the electronic terminal management system (ETMS) project to joint venture NextIX and Carus Ferry Ab
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The ETMS aims to fully digitize terminal management
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The contract covers the supply, delivery, installation, and commissioning of ETMS, including cloud-based unified electronic ticketing capabilities
The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has awarded the P499.898-million contract for its electronic terminal management system (ETMS) to the joint venture (JV) of NextIX, Inc. and Carus Ferry Ab Ltd.
The contract covers the supply, delivery, installation, and commissioning of ETMS, including cloud-based unified electronic ticketing capabilities, according to the notice of award dated December 23, 2021 and posted recently on PPA’s website.
Designed to fully digitize terminal management, the project is a package solution of software, hardware, equipment, and peripherals for simultaneous implementation. It includes the system server for the PPA head office and 25 kiosks to be distributed, installed, and configured across PPA ports.
NextIX is a Philippine innovation company specializing in universally available information and communication technology solutions for the consumer, small and medium enterprises; enterprise and government.
Carus is a Finnish global supplier of information systems to the travel and transport industry.
The JV bested the joint venture of Omniprime Marketing, Inc., Willowglen Services Pte Ltd., and NSS IT Solution SdnBhd, which had also passed the “first envelope” requirements during the opening of bids on October 12, 2021.
READ: PPA sets electronic terminal system rebidding for Oct 12
In a bid evaluation conducted on October 18, 2021, however, both JVs’ bids were declared “failed” for not having complied with requirements for the single largest completed contract.
Both JVs then filed separate requests for reconsideration, with the request of the NextIX and Carus JV accepted and that of its competitor rejected by the PPA Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).
The NextIX and Carus JV was subsequently declared as the single calculated bidder after a post-qualification review, with the BAC recommending the award of contract on December 15, 2021.
PPA general manager Jay Daniel Santiago earlier said the ETMS “will fully digitize terminal management not only in the gateway ports, particularly in the NCR, but this will be nationwide.”
He added that implementation of the system will be “one big leap forward in digitalization of our operations,” requiring less physical contact and manual intervention.
The ETMS, PPA said, aims to provide a regulatory platform and institutionalize innovative ways of doing business under “new normal” conditions through an online and real-time application that passengers, vessel operators, port service providers, and the ports authority can access “anytime and anywhere.”
It “will provide a digitized and systematized process of recording and simultaneous submission of passenger manifest, and vessel voyage information which can effectively be scaled and extended to support future phases of the terminal management process at the PPA port terminals,” PPA added.
The system’s objectives also include strengthening security and safety standards by mitigating vessel overloading and by effectively controlling the flow of regulated goods and cargoes using PPA port facilities, and providing standard stakeholders’ registries, credentialing, licensing, and accreditation monitoring.
It also aims to streamline the payment and collection of port fees (terminal and cargo/roll-on/roll-off) and harmonize this with PPA’s existing electronic payment system.
PPA in August 2019 announced a plan to implement an online ticketing system that would serve as a real-time system with a “single window” for processing on a single online portal all the transactions needed to be done by the government, shipping companies, port terminal operators, passenger terminal building operators, and the general public.
The system complies with the International Maritime Organization’s mandatory requirement for the electronic exchange of information on cargo, crew, and passengers as part of the revised Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic.
In November 2019, PPA issued Administrative Order (AO) No. 12-2019, which provides the rules on implementation of its Central Ticketing System (CTS), an online application procedure that would support an integrated vessel booking and payment system for roll-on/roll-off ports.
In September 2020, PPA tested its Unified Electronic Ticketing System, also known as CTS, at the port of Batangas and port of Calapan in Mindoro to prepare for the system’s planned full implementation in 2021. In November 2020, a public consultation was held with stakeholders ahead of AO 12-2019’s implementing rules and regulations.
READ: Shipping lines seek review of PPA’s “redundant” central ticketing system
The Philippine Inter-Island Shipping Association, however, earlier asked the Anti-Red Tape Authority to stop PPA’s bidding of the ETMS and requested a review of AO 12-2019, claiming the implementation of a CTS is “redundant”, “impractical” and an additional cost to the riding public.
