Cargo To Africa

Tag: Rwanda

  • Rwanda starts using Drones to deliver cargo

    The Rwandan Government has started drone operations to delivery emergency supplies to remote areas

    East African nation has taken a very bold step to save lives of their citizens and started emergency supply deliveries with the help of drones. While on the other hand, American giant companies like Google, Amazon and couple of others are working on the cargo delivery and door to door parcel services with the help of drones.

    Rwanda is one of the African nations where the companies like Zipline and UPS are working on different causes and helping the nation. The government has announced that they have started the operations through drones to deliver blood and there will be more than 150 deliveries per day to the different blood transfusion centres in the western part of the country. These drones will deliver emergency supplies to the remote areas and these instant deliveries will help in saving precious lives.

    What are these drones?

    The American company Zipline is a robotics manufacturing company and they are taking their 15 drones to help in delivering the emergency services to the remote areas. These drones are called as the Zips and they are especially designed to use in the emergency operations in the African countries. It has been designed to safely deliver the vaccines during the lengthy rainy seasons in Rwanda.

    Partnership on delivering the emergency supplies

    The drone delivery service will initially focus on the delivery of blood in the western Rwandan areas but Zipline has confirmed that the UPS and Vaccine alliance Gavi will join them in 2017 and then they will deliver all kind of medicines to all across the Rwanda.

    Rwandan government has plans to expand the drone operations in the eastern half of the country too but they will expand the Zipline drone delivery operations in early 2017. These operations will cover more than 11 million people in the country and they will be in the instant delivery reach of the centre from where the lifesaving drugs have been distributed to the entire country. It is truly amazing that a zip can travel more than 150 kms with a payload of around 1.5 kg.

    Zipline is not working under any non-governmental organisation, it has actually has a commercial agreement with the Rwandan Government. The UPS foundation has donated more than 1.1 million US dollars to the foundation. The Foundation is expecting to save more than thousands of lives with the help of this process in the next three years.

     

    What Zipline believes of Drone deliveries?

    The CEO of the Zipline organisation stated that the incapability to transport lifesaving drugs causes millions of avoidable life losses every year across the globe. Zipline is working to solve this problem for ever with the help of its delivery system.

    This instant delivery system helps Zipline to deliver medicines and emergency services to any remote area within 150 kilometres. It is a system that offers delivery on demand anywhere around the country. Rwanda has opted for this solution to save the lives of their people in the western part of the country.

  • East African Countries To Use Electonic Cargo Tracking System

    Kenya and Rwanda to replicate electronic cargo tracking system previously used by Uganda

     

    Kenya and Rwanda confirm that they are looking to replicate the electronic cargo tracking system (ECTS)this year. This system will ultimately reduce the cost of transporting cargo on the northern corridor. The heads of the state summit in Kigali stated that the process of procurement and installation will be finalized soon to address the issues of cash deposits and overstayed cargo in Mombasa.

    What the new system will bring new?

    The new system is expected to lower the cost of transportation of cargo and time. It will also reduce the curb thefts of cargo while delivering from one place to another and diversion of goods destined for its market from the port of Mombasa. The revenue authority commissioner of Uganda for customs

    The Revenue Authority commissioner for Customs Richard Kamajugo, the framework will enhance the productivity of Customs procedures bringing about higher income accumulations.

    Benefits of electronic tracking system

    There will be a pre-entry clearance of goods route before the ship touches base at the port of Mombasa and the containers, which will spare time, said Mr Kamajugo, including that the new framework will likewise give real time data on the area and the status of the payload in travel. Prior to the presentation of the innovation, one could just know the area by calling so as to travel load the driver.

    ECTS trigger an alarm whenever there is a diversion from the actual route, it will also inform on every unusual or long stopover and it will even inform the authorities if someone tries to open the containers illegally. The new system will help in sealing the loopholes that cause these countries loss in revenues through suspected under-declaration of the value of the exports and theft of cargo. The electronic tracking system had helped the traders in Uganda to minimize the costs and time of doing business from one week to just one and a half day.

    Costs of the system

    When the trucks face delay along the transit route, it costs $200 to $250 per day. Sometime the total cost or maybe a partial cost is passed over the owner of the goods. All this process was increasing the overall cost of goods being transported through this transit route. It was not only because of the unusual stoppages in the corridor, but the distance also was a factor.

    The New system will ensure that the countries will get precise information on imports and exports of goods from the port to the destination.