The chief of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) said on Wednesday that technological innovation is necessary for the agency to streamline and hasten most of its processes, as he enumerated several IT-driven services that his office has implemented in the past few years.
LTO chief Edgar C. Galvante said the introduction and adoption of technology into the LTO’s system helped “the agency maximize the use of technology to make services faster, more efficient, convenient and comfortable, and more importantly, to check corruption.”
For instance, he said, the Personal Appointment and Scheduling System has allowed clients to make advance appointments with the LTO. Another innovation that he mentioned is the Motor Vehicle Plate Query, which helps clients know the status of their motor-vehicle plates.
Galvante also mentioned the deployment of kiosks that allow the acceptance of motor vehicle renewal transactions, and the Information and Communications Technology Center, which digitally houses hardware of the IT system and all core systems for driver’s license application; motor vehicle inspection and registration; law enforcement and traffic adjudication; revenue collection system; executive information system; online enrolment and appointment system.
It also established its own plate- making plant that now makes use of robots with the assistance of human employees to produce 121,200 plates on a daily basis.
Galvante also mentioned that it has also tapped the Bureau of the Treasury and the Land Bank of the Philippine for the deployment of an electronic payment portal (ePP) to enable dealers to facilitate payment for the initial registration of new motor vehicles.
Aside from this, the agency has also adopted the Electronic Payment Assessment Tool a Web-based facility that computes the amount to be paid online. The computed amount from the e-PAT and other relevant details are sent to the ePP.
He said these are just some of the innovations that his agency has adopted over the past few years, as he vowed to take the agency to greater heights as it celebrates its 107th founding anniversary.
“[We] will continue to enhance LTO’s services to bring about the needed changes that will make the agency relevant, responsive and efficient,” Galvante said.
He noted that moving forward, his office will continue to address issues that are currently hounding the agency. The backlog on license plates, for example.
“[We are] targeting to completely resolve the backlog on motor plates by mid-2020,” Galvante noted.
As of end-April, more than 1.2 million pairs of motor vehicle plates have been produced, covering vehicles registered from mid-2016 to 2018.
For 2018 registered motor vehicles reached 11.6 million higher by 1.2 million or 11 percent compared to 10.5 million motor vehicles during the previous year. Driver’s licenses and permits issued during the same year totaled 7.5 million. This is 12 percent higher or 809,200 more than the 6.63 million in 2017.
Last year, the LTO collected a total of P24.2 billion for the year 2018, an increase of 6.6 percent or P1.5 billion higher than last year’s revenue of P22.7 billion.