Introduction
The London Underground Victoria Line trains run from Walthamstow in the north of the city to Brixton in the south departing every 2 minutes at 16 stations covering 21km. That’s an average of 60 trains per hour for 19 hours daily and 24 hours during the weekends. 200 million passenger trips are made on the line yearly (more than half a million passenger journeys daily). Victoria Line is only 1 out of 11 such underground train lines running in London covering 402km and serving 272 stations in total. The London Underground also known as the Tube which began in 1863 is said to handle up to five million passenger journeys a day. At peak times, it is reported that more than 543 trains are whizzing around the Capital underground.
The Tube is not the only public transportation system running in London. There are also the London buses famous for their red colours which began services in the 19th century and currently comprise a fleet of around 9,300 vehicles operating across 675 routes served by 50 bus stations and more than 19,000 bus stops. There is also the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) which began operations in 1987 and operates driverless and computerised trains stopping at 45 stations and comprising 149 vehicles, many operating in 3-car formation. There is the London Overground which was launched in 2007 that covers 112 stations across six routes. Then there is Transport for London (TfL) Rail services running from the West to Heathrow airport to Liverpool Street at the centre. There also Trams which began in the first half of the 20th century currently running 12 trams per hour. Water transport on the River Thames is also available operating at eight piers. The London Dial-a-Ride is a free door-to-door service for disabled people who can’t use public transportation. A network of Circleways and Walkable streets is also being developed to encourage more people to cycle or walk with the aim that by 2041, 80% of journeys in London will be made by cycling, walking and public transport. Additionally, there are privately provided services such as taxis, private hire like Uber and coaches.
The above well-developed public transportation system described above serves 9 million people in London. This is the same population with Lagos Nigeria. Kano and Ibadan are nearly 4 million people each in population. Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Benin City and Maiduguri have all crossed the 1 million mark and heading to 2 million in population. These Nigerian cities do not even have a fraction of the organised public transportation system which serves the 9 million people of London. Nigerian commuters are daily thrown under the bus and reduced to riding on motorbikes (called okada), tricycles (called keke), rickety buses and other vehicles or even resort to trekking many kilometres while exposed to the rain, sunshine and other elements in very dehumanising conditions which lowers the dignity of the human person.
Economic Losses from Poor/Non-Availability of Organised Public Transportation in Nigeria
Successive governments in Nigeria at the federal, state and local levels have ignored public transportation with serious economic consequences. Nigerian citizens have been left to endure harrowing experiences commuting daily from their abodes (usually on the outskirts of the cities) to the cities where their jobs are located and to face the same nightmarish trips on their way back home after closing from work. The most notorious of these traffic hotspots are the Mararaba/Nyanya axis going in and out of the federal capital city of Abuja and the mainland/island daily commute in the commercial city of Lagos.
These monstrous traffic gridlocks that commuters endure daily cause serious economic losses such as failing health of commuters resultant from stress and fatigue which in turn escalates cases of absenteeism and the attendant high costs of healthcare. There is also high cost of fuel as journeys that ordinarily should not be more than 30 minutes last several hours in the gridlocks. Manhours are lost, the environment is damaged from pollution coming off the exhaust pipes of thousands of stationary vehicles most of them with old engines, damage to vehicles necessitating high repair/maintenance costs, accidents with casualties and fatalities, delays to business meetings, supply chain bottlenecks, expensive costs of moving goods which is inbuilt in the final prices the consumers bear thus causing more inflation. These are some of the avoidable economic costs of not implementing an efficient public transportation system for our urban centres.
To make matters worse, Nigerian Governors are fixated with building airports which end up being under utilised. The funds for these white-elephant airport projects will be better applied to building rail transportation the globally acclaimed best form of mass transportation as London has developed overtime. The push by the Lagos government to complete the twin rail routes – red and blue lines – is a fresh of breath of air in approach to public transportation and it is hoped that other states will copy and begin implementation of rail projects in their states. A light rail project for example will cost a fraction of the money wasted on airports and it will ferry millions of passengers daily with adequate return on investments, safe and comfortable travels and far more jobs created than any airport will do.
Recommendations
1 The Buhari government has given deaf ears to all the advice offered in the past 7 years of the government and it is not likely anything will change with the remaining year which is now all about politics. This column will therefore switch its focus to setting the agenda for the incoming governments at all levels in 2023.
2 The Federal government in 2023 must take immediate steps to instigate constitutional change to step down rail transportation from the exclusive list in the constitution to the concurrent list to pave way for full privatisation of the rail sector with the twin objective of providing comfortable, affordable and safe means of public transportation and creation of high-quality jobs.
3 An efficient and effective public transportation system will help meet the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – (1) No Poverty, (3) Good Health and Well-being, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, (9) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, (10) Reduced Inequality, (11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, (12) Responsible Consumption and Production, (13) Climate Action, (15) Life on Land. Public transportation must therefore be a key priority for all governments at all levels from 2023 as Nigeria strives to meet the UN SDGs!
References:
https://youtu.be/Hr5Riwkk0OI
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/what-we-do
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cities/nigeria
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
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