The role of Public Transportation is to provide people and services with mobility that fosters employment, education, retail, health, recreational facilities, communities’ facilities and other necessary basic structures that keeps life going.
Public Transportation includes the use of trains, buses, ferries, taxis and airlines. This moves people towards a more sustainable future, the more trips that are done by public transport, the less the number of trips that are done by private vehicles, leading to road sustenance, less congestion on the roads and a more efficient transportation systems.
Some of the benefits of better public transportation systems are as follows:
It provides an alternative to reliance on the motor vehicle, reduces traffic congestion and travel times. It also provides economic opportunities, reduces harmful pollution and improves air quality, provide benefits to individuals and communities.
Public transportation is a form of collection and distribution process. The shape and form of public transport networks generally reflects the level of frequency of where people want to travel to and from, which is very pivotal to the need for different transportation modes such as Railway, buses, ferries, airlines and pipeline transport which optimizes efficiency in society.
The best form of transportation management is the multimodal transport concept which is recognized as one of the most important components of global logistics in Nigeria and other global economies for which Nigeria fully approves. For instance, the enactment of the 2003 Nigeria Cabotage Act, development of Inland Container Depot, dredging of River Niger as well as seaports terminal, concessioning, railway reinvestment and reforms are major evidence of the commitment of the Nigeria governments towards the realization of multimodal transport in the country.
Notwithstanding, multimodal transport operation in Nigeria is still largely being impaired and under developed, because of the following factors, lack of guaranteed schedules services, lack of cargo information systems, lack of modern cargo handling equipment and methods, poor roads, no rail links to the ports and poor state of transport infrastructure across the nation.
Transportation and trades are inextricably linked in such a way that efficient transport services are a prerequisite to successful trading.
Nigeria like all other developing economies of the world needs to encourage multimodal transport development by ensuring it is private sector driven.
Government should therefore limit its primary roles to regulation and coordination of the activities of the diverse stakeholders in the sector, otherwise government bureaucracy and delays would discourage and constrain the private investors from investing in the development of infrastructures that would accelerate the development of multimodal transport operations in Nigeria.
Government and its agencies should play the role of multimodal transport facilitator
thereby partnering private investor in this regards, as well as creating the enabling environment for investments, this will boost efficiency of Nigerian transport and logistics sector and would then be able to utilize some of the huge benefits of technological innovation and advancement in the global multimodal transport systems, such as the use of modern cargo handling equipment, communication technology, modern security systems, bimodal vehicles such as containers and barges and also by means of piggyback of the system.
In the present situation of our transportation systems, Global Logistics organisations would find it difficult collaborating with the Nigerian Railway Corporation, let alone with the Inland Waterway Authority and other associated agencies in the transportation sector because of the huge advancements and difference between modern day transportation and our nation’s deplorable transportation systems.
Global economies and organisations have achieved a very significant progress as a result of adopting and fully implementing well structured multimodal systems and would find it difficult to collaborate with our present system as a result of the poor antecedents, bottlenecks and corrupt systems embedded within our transportation sector in managing and maximising business opportunities in the past, most developed economies do not compromise, are well structured ,have put in the right people in the right positions in the management of their transportation systems and have the right infrastructures in place to run government businesses efficiently to boost the economy of their various nations.
Most Global Logistics organisations would be more comfortable dealing with a private transport organisations as compared to government agencies, as practiced currently in developed nations. We as a nation must begin to show more determination willingness, commitment and transparency towards a total overhauling and transformation of the transportation sector through a holistic and inclusive privatization of the transportation sector in order for us to maximise the benefits of multimodal transportation systems which would definitely impact positively on our trade, economic systems and create more value to our economy.
The way forward for the speedy growth of our transportation systems is for the Nigerian government to allow the private sector to drive the course of the expected growth and development in terms of productivity, infrastructures, service delivery, explore modern day marketing strategies, skills, trainings and optimization of the entire operational network within the transportation sector, while government remains at the background monitoring and coordinating the activities of the private players and investors within the industry.
If the above steps are taken seriously with determination and total commitment, our nation’s trade, transportation sector and economy will experience tremendous growth and development which will create massive job opportunities, improvement of our GDP, prosperity, stability and create alternative diversification areas for our economy from the current total reliance in the oil sector and we will start benefiting from the inherent potentials of multimodal transport operations, which are on time cargo delivery, door to door movement of cargo, reduction of cargo handling cost, cheaper overall transportation costs across all the modes, reduction of delays and congestion within the system, increased safety, reliability of cargoes and people arriving at their destination at the actual stipulated time.
Festus Okotie
