‘Functional rail network will solve the Tin Can road traffic gridlock’
A maritime and transport expert, member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport and Rector, Emdee Shipping & Maritime College, Chigozie Chikere, speaking with the Sunday Trust, identifies causes of the traffic gridlock on the Apapa-Tin Can port expressway as bad roads, lack of rail system in the area and sharp practices by security agents. Excerpts:
What do you see as the remote and immediate causes of the traffic crisis in the Apapa and Tin Can ports axes? Looking at the remote causes, Lagos was not planned in the areas of road network, allocation of industries, and location of ports and whatever. There was no proper planning. The direct problem is that there is no rail transport in the entire Tin Can Island, although there is in Apapa.
Apart from that, the Tin Can area is one that generates a lot of traffic, but there is no proper planning to accommodate the heavy flow. The bad roads from time to time cause containers to fall off trucks, resulting in long traffic jams. And now, there is also the problem of siting of tank farms, which has produced numerous trucks queuing and parking everywhere in the axes waiting to load petroleum products. Many of the tanker drivers waiting to load at the tank farms just park their vehicles on the road and go home. There was no proper planning for the tank farms before their location there.
Again, another major cause that I observed is that at the two gates that lead to the Tin Can port, the security agents that operate there (the Police, the Navy, the NPA Port security and the Unions) grant access anyhow to the trailers or trucks going in. There is an allowance for the tankers to queue on the service lane, which is legal. But the security agents at the gate, mostly at the second gate, arrange for what they call ‘express’, trailers or trucks who are ready to pay N5,000 each to leave the main lane and form a second queue. By doing that, they block the speed lane which should be left free for other vehicles to use. So the long double queues get blocked. These are the immediate causes that I know.
So what are the short and permanent problem?
The Federal Government has started repairing the road; it is also building a tanker park from the Liverpool bridge to the Coconut bridge. But that is not enough; awarding a contract is not just enough.
The security men at the gate should be more closely monitored. In fact, the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) should be given the responsibility of assisting the truckers to get justice, because the security officers intimidate them if they don’t give bribe willingly. But they don’t have an option. The CRFFN should provide succour for them. The council can go to court at whatsoever cost to get justice for truckers.
Government should also speed up rehabilitation of the Tin Can Island road and closely monitor the contractor working on it. The slow pace of the job is affecting vehicular movement. Since the contractors began the parking bay job from Liverpool to Coconut, the project is still around the Liverpool area, meaning that it is too slow. The Federal Ministry of Works should be more serious about monitoring them.
Government should look at building a rail system in the Tin Can Island area. Let’s look at the Orile-Badagry rail project, for example. There was no rail line for many years along that corridor, but today the state government has seen the need for it, initiated the vital rail project and construction is ongoing.
The Federal Government can also extend its rail line from Apapa to Tin Can Island and even do one along the Oshodi- Apapa expressway so that containers and other cargoes can be moved by rail. Passengers,too. By the time, government decongests traffic through such an effective network,we will not be talking about this problem again.
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Location of tank farms also generates heavy traffic. It is big folly to concentrate many of them here in this area which has only one link road.
Government should relocate the tank farms to another area, although they are there because they depend on the sea. But government can develop another sea port along the coastline majorly for oil so that they can relocate the tank farms there.
Where do you think government can build such a project here in Lagos?
I believe it would be better located in the Badagry area because the distance from the shoreline to the road is wide, not as close as it is here. No matter how many tankers are waiting to load there, they will have enough space to park instead of parking along the road here.
How would you quantify losses from this problem to the nation in terms of man-hours and financial cost?
The losses the traffic gridlock cause every day are unquantifiable. The economic cost of the traffic is very high. Losses from traffic jams are always high. Time is money. There is a report about a United Kingdom survey which says that the traffic condition in London is causing the UK more than 4.3 billion pounds a year.
In Canada, in the part of Hamilton and Toronto, a study in 2006 concluded that the annual cost of congestion to commuters was $3.3 billion. This is what surveys can capture. In Nigeria, unfortunately, it is very difficult to quantify these things scientifically.
What advice do you have for stakeholders in the port areas?
The relevant authorities should take action to quicken the process of improving the road infrastructure in the area so that everyone can go on with his or her business.