LTO orders contractor to fix direct connectivity project

MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has ordered its information technology provider, Stardcom Corp., to fix the problems in its “direct connectivity” project.

LTO chief Albert Suansing said that he issued a directive to Stradcom to ensure the integrity of the “real-time” online transmission of photographs taken of each smoke emission test conducted by private smoke emission testing centers (PETCs).

Suansing said there have been certain deficiencies and weakness in the viewing facilities set up by Stradcom which enables the LTO to monitor and audit all the data transmitted to their database from the PETCs.

“We ordered them to improve the facility they set up for the Direct Connection. We should have a viewing facility to monitor and evaluate all the data transmitted to us from the PETCs,” Suansing said.

The “real-time” online transmittal of all photographs taken by PETCs of each smoke emission test they conduct has been made a requirement by the LTO to ensure that all vehicles seeking renewal of their registration undergo smoke emission testing.

PETCs has turned to four DOTC–accredited PETC information technology providers – Eurolink, RDMS, ETC IT, and Cyberlink – to provide connectivity and other IT services needed for this real-time online upload of data to the LTO database.

Early this year, under previous LTO chief Arturo Lomibao, the agency had started its direct connect project that allowed PETCs to link up to Stradcom for the data upload to the LTO systems database, a project opposed by the four DOTC-accredited PETC IT providers.

These PETC IT providers alleged that fraudulent smoke emission test results have been uploaded to the database as a result of the project.

The smoke emission tests have been made compulsory by the Clean Air Act, passed several years ago.