A STUDY OF THE FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPERATIONS IN NIGERIA

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Author: AWOREMI, J. R., [Ph.D]

INTRODUCTION

Public Transport Operation and its Development in Nigeria:

In Nigeria for the last 20 years the usage of public transport has been increasing very fast, due to rapid growth in population, city size, decline in personal mobility caused by scarcity of foreign exchange and severe import restrictions (Filani and Abumere, 1992). In most cities, bus service and many forms of paratransit are playing dominant role in meeting the travel needs of the majority of the populace especially the low-income groups. In response to the situation in recent years both public and private transport operations had been completely re-structured by the Federal government with considerable investment in the bus fleet size. About 90% of the travel needs of the people are met by road public transport in most cities (Federal Ministry of Transport and Aviation, 1984; Bolade, 1988). However the urban public transport sector is characterized by low growth rate in terms of vehicles in use, passengers carried and route kilometers operated. The conventional bus operators were unable to meet the total demands of the traveling masses. By the late 1970's and the early 1980's some state's owned public transport companies (Lagos, Bendel, Kaduna, Kano) collapsed (Adeniji 1983; Ezeije and Bolade 1984) and those that survived were operating under serious financial and manpower constraints. Hence, they were providing skeletal and erratic service in few cities. By 1987 the private sector operators were carrying more than 98% of all public transport journeys in Nigeria's urban centres (World Bank 1990). Demand for Public Transport The phenomenal increase in population and city size is noticeable in most cities especially state capitals and local government headquarters. Adesanya (1994) asserted that the population of Lagos grew at a phenomenal rate of about 15% annually in the 1970's while those of Ibadan, Ilorin, Kano, Port¬-Harcourt and Abeokuta grew at between 10-20% annually in 1970's and 1980's. Similarly, the population of Yola grew from 53,732 in 1963 to 156,978 in 1995 at a growth rate of 5% per annum (Ahmed, 1996). The rapid increase of population was accompanied by a rapid expansion of the metropolitan town. Yola for example grew from 325 sq kms in 1975 with a boundary of 5 kms to 650 sq kms in 1984 with a boundary of 12 sq kms. It was predicted that for every additional 1000 people in developing cities, an extra 350-400 public transport trips per day would be generated. Similarly for every additional square kilometer of city growth, an extra 500 public transport trips per day will be generated (UITP 1975 & 1979; Jacob et al, 1987). The urbanization and increased industrial and commercial activities led emergence of many slums and several villages merged with the metropolitan town leading to longer and more motorized trips. Another factor adding significantly to the level of demand for public transport in Nigerian cities is the low level of personal mobility. This generally created high demands for public transport (Dimitrious, 1990). In most West African cities, car ownership level averaged 5 - 15 per inhabitants (Barret, 1986). This is very low compared to cities of developed countries where there were an average of 20-40 cars per 100 inhabitants (White, 1990). Personal mobility in Nigeria has declined tremendously due to high cost of vehicles and spare parts. Attempts in providing bus services to cope with the existing large and increasing demand have failed due largely to financial mismanagement, inadequate subsidy to maintain fleets and service (Adeniji, 1983b). Problems Associated with Public Transport Operations in Nigeria Generally, when a transport company is established, it is expected to buy vehicles among other things and set up an operating system, in order to fulfill the major objectives of the transport concern. There are three principal functions of the 'operations ' of a typical bus company (Gubbins, 1988) namely; operating, maintaining and personnel management. But the principal functions of these operating systems are fraught with problem of Low fare policy, Insufficient Cost Recovery and Overstaffing which culminated in gross insufficiency. (a) Low Fares Policy The fares policy of any public transport undertaking is one of the important elements of bus operation that can affect patronage as well as revenue generation. Publicly owned passenger transport undertakings, are often established for various reasons among which are economic, social and welfare but the ultimate is always to assist in alleviating the mobility and accessibility problems of the poor urban masses. Most mass transit companies through government directives were made to implement low fares policy, notwithstanding the rising operating costs and none-provision of operating subsidies. The effect was that many mass transits reduced the size of their intra-urban services, and concentrated on the lucrative inter-urban services, thus partly defeating the objective of solving intra-urban mobility problem. With regard to private sector operators, the issue of unnecessary and excessive fare control had always been their source of contention with the government. They usually argued that the fare levels were insufficient to make them break-even (Umar, 2005). (b) Insufficient Cost Recovery Most publicly owned bus undertakings have very low cost recovery ability because of several reasons which include among other; low level of fleet utilization; high rate of vehicle breakdown and grounding due to the unavailability of vital vehicle spare parts and low fare policy. A survey carried out in 1996 showed that the revenue-cost ratios of the sampled four mass transit agencies were low. All the companies excluding one were operating at a loss for the period of time considered (Adesanya, 2002). (c) Overstaffing Many of the mass transit companies in Nigeria are faced with the problem of overstaffing. Research findings showed that the rising level of staff per operated bus was a result of massive or generous employment policy, with a reflection of low vehicle turnout (Adesanya, 1994). The economic and operating efficiency of bus undertakings is dependent upon a multiplicity of factors (Armstrong, 1998). Sometimes a few of these factors and their effects on public transport operation are inextricably intertwined. For instance, the low fares policy of public owned mass transit undertakings coupled with low vehicles turn-out may result in the over utilization of the available serviceable vehicles. This situation increases the risk of further vehicle breakdown and even lower vehicle turnout. This may lead to possible erosion of the revenue base of public transport undertakings and the lowering of their productivity.

Urban Mass Transport Operations in Nigeria The urban transportation problem arises principally because of high concentration of population, economic activities, and educational and social facilities in relatively small areas, particularly with poor land use planning. These activities generate demand for transport services far in excess of supply of such services (Bolade, 1993). Arising from this, the Federal Urban Mass Transit Agency (FUMTA) was established in 1988 as Government response to the mobility crisis arising from the gross inadequacy of the various modes of public transportation in virtually all the urban centres in the country. With the adoption of Structural Adjustment Programme in 1986, the cost of procuring vehicles, spare parts and fuel rose astronomically, to the extent that many car owners abandoned their cars and the demand for public transportation increased (World Bank, 1990). On the side of the transport operators, there was an equally rapid decline in the acquisition of new buses and the few buses that were available could not cope with the demand problem above. The rail system could not help much because the NRC was ill equipped for urban mass transportation. Ferry services in the riverine areas could not help because it only existed in Lagos and Port Harcourt. It is sad to note that none of the major cities had an effective traffic management system, thus, the Task Force on Urban Mass Transit was therefore established in January 1988 to ameliorate the frustrations and hardships being experienced by workers and communities in all the major cities. This was backed up by a proposed budget of N700 million for implementation of various urban mass transit projects. The report of the task force, which was presented on March 4, 1988, contained recommendation on programs and projects designed to relieve the situation and institutional machinery for implementation. A Mass Transit Implementation committee was formed on late March under the chairmanship of the then Minister of Transport. The committee was dissolved in September 1988 and a sole Administrator was appointed to continue with the implementation process under the Federal Urban Mass Transit Programme (FUMTP, 1989). The 1988 Federal Government intervention further drew inspirations from such Federally organized nations like Federal Republic of Germany and the United State of America. In these later countries, the development of strategic urban heavy transit system such as the metro lines, bus ways, and public transport improvement measures in the bigger metropolis are often financed with Federal grants (Bolade, 1993).

METHODOLOGY

This research work was carried out in Kwara State Transport Corporation, Ilorin with the aid of well-structured questionnaires and interview techniques. A total number of eighty (80) copies of questionnaire were randomly administered out of which sixty-five (65) questionnaires (that is about 81.2%) were correctly completed and analyzable. The collected data were analyzed using multiple regression estimation technique. Variables investigated include: prohibitive prices of vehicles, spare parts and fuel; poor technical knowhow or expertise; mismanagement; vehicle maintenance practices; sizes of buses/ vehicles; poor data management in operational performance, unrealistic pricing and / or fares policies and financial/ fund constraints. The model is specified as:  = a + 1x1 + 2x2 + 3x3 ……………………………+ Ue derived Where,  = denotes Rate of fleet utilization (performance) X1= denotes prohibitive prices of vehicles, spare-parts and fuel X2 = denotes poor technical know-how / expert personnel X3 = denotes Mismanagement. X4 = denotes Vehicle Maintenance practices X5 = denotes size of buses/ vehicles X6 = denotes poor data management operational performance X7 = denotes Unrealistic pricing and / or fares policies.] X8 = denotes Financial or Funding constraints Ue = denotes stochastic Error term "a" is the assumed constant level of performance and 1 = 1 + 2 …………… n denotes the coefficient of the identified predictors.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

The summary output of Multiple regression estimation technique is shown below as:  = 67.27279 - 4.23418x1 + 0.6304x2 + 0.10214x3 + 0.07894x4 + 0.20878x5 - 0.07600x6 - 0.05719x7 - 0.05885x8 + Ue ……… Eqn (i)

* * * MULTIPLE REGRESSION * * * Multiple R .87376 R Square .76512 Adjusted R square .76156 Standard Error 5.12680 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE DF Sum of Square Mean Square Regression 2 8759 06593 4379.51718 Residual 63 2689 60289 26.11034 F = 167.83343 Sig. F = 0.01

Variables in the Equation Variables  SE Beta T Sig. T Constant 67.27279 1.95252 - 35.479 .0000 POVSF -4.23418 .43672 -55918 -9.131 .0000 PTKH .63046 .09415 .40891 2.217 .0000 MISMGT .10214 .20513 .57136 1.839 .0000 VEMAP .07894 .18912 .23681 4.182 0.358 SOBUV .20878 .38160 .49517 1.463 0.689 PODAM -.07600 -.15675 -.60544 -1.592 .0001 UNPAF -.05719 .06315 -.21761 -1.326 .1144 FOFUC -.05885 -0.5576 -.31621 -2.132 .0001 Source: Computer print-out of SPSS (2005). The Multiple R is interpreted as the correlation between the dependent variable and the explanatory variables as shown in Equation (i) above and its value is 0.87376. The R2 is the percentage of variance of the dependent variable explained the eight (8) explanatory variables already in the Equation (i). Its value of 0.76512 implies 76.57% of the variance of dependent variable that are explainable by the identified explanatory variables. The significance of this value was tested with the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the calculate F - value is 167.83343 which is found to be statistically significant at F = 0.01. In consonance with these findings, POVSF that is, x1 was found to have negative impact of the performance or rate of fleet utilization. In furtherance to the negativity of x1, the variables x6, x7, and x8 showed their negative impact on the performance of the corporation. It can then be concluded that of all the identified and tested variables, variables 1, 6, 7, 8 that is, prohibitive prices of vehicles, spare parts and fuel; poor data management of operational performance; unrealistic pricing and/or Fares policies and Funding constraints are the factors that are enormously hindering the performance of Kwara State Transport Corporation that is, "Kwara Express".

CONCLUSION:

Arising from the findings of this research work, prohibitive prices of petroleum products and spare-parts have significant impact on the performance and/or rate of fleet utilization in the study area and this has limited the efficiency and effectiveness of the corporation. The State Mass Transit Agencies have generally been mismanaged and over-politicized. They also have records of low cost recovery rates. It is therefore not surprising that these agencies also have high rates of default in servicing the loans obtained from the Federal Urban Mass Transit Programme and other financial institutions (Ikya, 1993). Many of the states operating agencies recorded low operational performance over the years. They had low rate of fleet utilization. The standard of service was unsatisfactory for most of the agencies. Passengers experienced discomfort, over-crowing, long waiting times and unreliability as fundamental problems. Their financial performance was also poor as operating cost exceeded revenues expected for a few agencies. (FUMTP, 1989). Given the current state of public transport operation in Nigeria there are some critical issues that need to be considered, if public transport passenger operations are to succeed. Some of these issues include: (i) Devising appropriate policy framework for public transport planning, management and operation. (ii) Effective management and financing mechanism; (iii) Rational, non-distorting pricing policies; (iv) Periodic review of fares, and taking into account the increasing costs of providing public transport services. (v) Development of human resources for urban transport management and for successful operation of public transport services.

REFERENCES

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INFORMATION

(a.) AWOREMI, Joshua Remi is a lecturer in the Department of Management Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso. He has his Bachelor of Technology in Agricultural Economics; He obtained M.Tech (Management Science) and Ph.D (Management Science) from the same citadel of higher learning. His a member of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, London. His areas of specialization include: Public Transport Management and Financial Management.