61. Trip Modeling and Cost Analysis for Public Road Transport System for the City of Lusaka
- Author:
- Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis & Research (ZIPAR) and ROM Transportation Engineering Ltd.
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
- Abstract:
- The increase in the use of private motor vehicles for routine travel within the City of Lusaka suggests weakness in the Public Transport (PT) system. Regrettably, the majority of the intra-city travelers have to accept an ineffective and inefficient PT system or resort to walking/cycling whereas those who can afford turn to private motoring. . It is evident that the less privileged travelers of the City are the most affected by the weaknesses of the current PT system. The current PT fares are unsustainably high and service levels undesirable. This is largely owes to the minimal regulation approach to public transport operations in Zambia. The commitment by Government to invest in transport infrastructure such as ring roads, filter lanes and traffic light is backed by the realization that intra-city travel is becoming more and more problematic and that the situation would become unsustainable in future if it were to be left unaddressed. These measures will substantially tackle a lot of the emerging local travel problems, but the need to examine the current travel demand management and its effectiveness in promotion of public transport usage is equally important. Additional measures will be required to enhance PT services provision, making it more efficient, effective and affordable. Enhanced PT services are expected to engender a reduction in dependency on private motoring and the associated traffic congestion concerns on one hand and an increase PT usage on the other. In this research we investigated some of the key features of the PT system in the City of Lusaka, model its trips and analyses its costs. Our analysis is based on a survey of bus services, covering approximately 50 bus routes and over 1,700 passengers. GPS data was also gathered for purposes of modelling trips and charting bus routes. In our analysis we considered aspects of service specifications, current level of service, fuel consumption, revenue, average trip costs, driver expenses, operator expenses and bus revenue allocation. Most of these aspects were found to be far off from the international best practice and international benchmarking. Our research concluded that the PT system for Lusaka fails to sufficiently meet the routine travel requirements of the majority. Finally, we recommend some measure that could be considered to address the issues arising and to better manage the travel demand of the City’s population. These measures are first highlighted in isolation because they can be implemented as such. However, we recommend combining all the measures into a single set of actions which can be implemented in stages in order to harness the synergies of a joint implementation which could yield up to as much as 48 percent PT fare reduction.
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Transportation, and Public Investment
- Political Geography:
- Zambia and Africa