The University of Costa Rica (UCR) will launch a project that seeks to revolutionize the transportation sector in Central America through a new computer application and a web page, announced the institution yesterday.

The official launch will take place Friday, April 28, 2017 at the Wyndham Hotel at 8 a.m. At the event, the Caravana application will be officially presented to the Secretariat of Central American Economic Integration (SIECA).

The project was undertaken by the School of Customs Administration and Foreign Trade at the University of Costa Rica with the aim of benefitting the region’s trade.

According to M.Sc. Susana Wong Chan, the school department head, the project seeks to “create a point of contact between land freight carriers and companies wishing to transport cargo in the region,” by creating a forum for them to connect and work out the details of the required work.

“With Caravana, the customer fills out a single form indicating all the information about the cargo in question, and this will be sent simultaneously to all providers that qualify as service providers,” explained Wong Chan.

“In addition, Caravana offers the opportunity for carriers to offer their services, so customers can compare and contact different cargo companies,” she added.

In this regard, Wong stressed that the idea is to enable the customer to obtain “the best possible price and the shortest possible time”, so as to reduce “logistics costs.”

“In addition to the above, Caravans also offers indicators such as estimated times in border processes, average prices (according to departure and destination countries), main places where transportation is provided, among other information, which can be used by governments, companies, research institutions and others,” Wong said.

The Caravan project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) when the UCR Public Administration School won a competition to facilitate Central American trade.

Since then, the project has been managed by the University of Costa Rica Foundation, and has developed what they believe to be a unique and effective way to solve the main areas that need improvement in the ground transport sector: cost reduction and operations/logistics.

 

For more information contact M.Sc. Susana Wong Chan: telephone (506) 2511-6478, email: [email protected], or at the page: http://caravanaca.com