Contestability between Road and Rail Transport for Dry Cargo in Malawi: Cost and Service Reliability Issues. The Never Ending Race (original) (raw)
Related papers
2023
Understanding the transport mode choice factors that are important to the commodity shippers is one of the important key aspects to consider when aiming for efficient and effective transport planning. Over the years, several studies have been conducted in other countries trying to establish the factors that influence commodity shippers' decisions when choosing transport modes. While these factors have been unearthed, little is known about how these factors are prioritized in shipping decisions. This study therefore aimed to investigate the factors that influence transport mode choices and also examine how shippers weigh and rank these factors with regard to their importance. A descriptive research design within quantitative methodology was employed. Using a simple random sampling technique, 84 participants were recruited for this study. The findings of the study revealed that shipment travel time, transport cost, transport mode availability, and transport service reliability have an influence on how shippers choose a transport mode for their shipments. The study further revealed that transportation cost was the ranking transport modal choice factor among the factors. It was therefore recommended that the government should consider revitalising low-cost rail transportation to make it more efficient and responsive to shippers' demands.
Analysis of transport logistics challenges affecting freight forwarding operations in Malawi
Malawi is one of the landlocked countries within sub-Saharan Africa which faces serious challenges in managing her transport logistics. The provision of predictable, reliable and cost effective transport logistics is constrained due to deficiencies in road and rail infrastructure, inefficient port and transit border operations that contribute to very high transport cost. This study was undertaken to analyse the challenges facing the transport logistics industry in sub-Saharan Africa specifically Malawi. Data was solicited from a structured questionnaire that was circulated to purposely selected members from the population of the business community with expertise in transport logistics. Results from the study are also supported by literature and indicated tha t high transport cost, deficiencies in road and rail infrastructure, inefficient port and transit border delays pose serious challenges to transport logistics.
Correlates of Transport Mode Choice: Dry Commodity Movement. A Case of Malawi
2023
Goods from Malawi face a range of challenges in competing on the international market which in part, is as a result of high transportation costs. Despite rail transportation being cheaper than road transportation, Malawi commodity shippers prefer the latter, thus affecting the pricing of the goods on the market. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate the correlates of transport modal choices and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used to guide the study. The study employed quantitative approach and descriptive research design in which a questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 104 respondents in a population of 141 dry commodity shippers by using simple random probability sampling technique. The key objective of the study was to determine the correlates of transport modal choice in Malawi. The study found that shipment travel time, freight costs, transport mode availability and transport service reliability had a relationship with transport modal choices that shippers made. The study therefore recommends that transport service providers should endeavor take into account these correlates for proper transport planning and management.
Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management
As few studies have been conducted in freight transport research in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region; this paper provides empirical results on two research questions that allows the understanding of the freight procurement landscape in SADC. Firstly, who the decision maker is in terms of freight mode choice, and secondly, which modal attributes are consider and in which order, when shippers make mode choice decisions. Method: An online survey was conducted with 86 shippers, freight forwarders and thirdparty logistics parties across the SADC region to address modal attributes in freight mode choice. The exploded logit model was developed to draw inference from the data. Results: The results confirm that freight mode choice decisions are mostly affected by the shipper, with the freight forwarder being typically employed as the advisor. In terms of modal attributes, the results of an exploded logit model revealed that the top five attributes in terms of importance are reliability with reference to arriving on time, transport cost, risk of damage, frequency of service and transit time. Conclusion: These results can inform freight studies, especially shipper behavioural studies, which require the enumeration of attributes that can lead to improved reliable studies on freight transport.
Monetary values of freight transport quality attributes: A sample of Tanzanian firms
Journal of Transport Geography, 2011
This paper presents the findings of a stated preference research conducted in Tanzania (East Africa). The objective of the survey was to determine the relative importance as well as monetary values attached to freight transport quality attribute by shippers in this region. In-depth interviews with the logistic managers of companies that produce and ship goods were conducted. The freight transport quality attributes considered in this survey were flexibility, frequency, loss and damage, reliability, and transit time. The monetary values of these attributes have been computed as willingness to pay for their improvement as well as willingness to accept compensation for a decrease in their quality. The results show that shippers in this region consider travel time, loss and damage and frequency as the most important quality attributes. This may have relevant implications for the infrastructural transport policies to be implemented in the country.
The Role of Tanzania Central Railway Line in Promoting Cargo Transportation
2015
This study conducted to examine the role of central railway line in promoting cargo transportation in Tanzania. The emphasis was placed particularly on the volume of cargo transported for five years aiming to comprehend transportation needs, limiting challenges facing railway transportation and promote cargo transportation. To achieve this descriptive method of data analysis with secondary and primary data were used to reveal the level of cargo transportation in central railway. Findings from the study indicated that there is a high need for cargo transport by central railway line as it showed that only forty five percent of all cargo was transported. It was also found that there are many challenges affecting railway transport including difficulties in getting train engines which are compatible with technology, infrastructure in-capacity and ability of most railway bridges to pass heavy cargo is low. Despite of these challenges in operations, it realized that, central railway line w...
International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, 2024
While transportation is considered as a trade facilitator in international trade, high transportation costs can adversely impact on commodity pricing and its competiveness on the market. Studies have shown that raising transportation costs by 10 percent reduces trade volume by more than 20 percent. The purpose of this study was therefore, to understand the impact that transportation cost has on pricing of goods from Malawi in international trade. The study sought to establish transportation costs affordability perception from export commodity shippers and assess how transportation cost affects commodity pricing on the international market. The study employed quantitative research approach and descriptive research design in which a closed-ended questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 104 shippers in dry-commodity export shipping community. Simple random sampling method was used to determine the sample size. The study found that shippers do not find transportation costs affordable and that the high transportation costs affect negatively the pricing of the goods on the market. The study therefore recommends that government, through the Ministry of Transport and Public Works, to develop logistics cost estimation model and invest in logistics management systems that will enable the industry to collect data, identify bottlenecks and improve the transport system to reduce transportation cost.
A Study on Externally Driven Costs for Road Freight Transportation in Zimbabwe
International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 2023
The purpose of the study was to assess how external costs impacted on the overall performance of road freight transport sector in Zimbabwe. Both internal and external dynamics play a huge role on the decisions made by operators and mangers in freight transport business. Freight transport is key to socioeconomic development of a country and hence there is need to scrutinize how external costs impact on the performance of such entities. This was a quantitative study of road freight transport sector across Zimbabwe with a population of 1256 registered companies and a randomly picked sample size of 384. A total of 384 questionnaires were distributed and 291 were retrieved giving a response rate of 75.6%. study found out that external costs such as accidents, traffic congestion and environmental pollution, if go unchecked have a huge impact on profitability margins due to fines for non-compliance, compensation and insurance costs. The study recommends development of a company policy document that would outline the scope and actions to be taken to ameliorate the negative impact of external costs on business performance.
This article investigates the key challenges in the operation of Multimodal Transport System. The 'Multimodal Transport' concept can be defined as the combination of various types of transport modes used in a national or international transport operation, which provides door-to-door services, under the responsibility of one single transport operator. The Multimodal Transport System is a concept aimed at improving trading efficiency. Following the introduction of Multimodal Transport System in Ethiopia since 2012, there have been symptoms which have stimulated substantial public debate and inefficiencies as studies shows. The study identifies the key challenges of Multimodal Transport System in the trade and investments during importation of goods and it is expected to help beneficiaries to know the gap for using Multimodal Transport System. Simple descriptive statistics and inferential statistical measures were used to analyze the data. The key identified challenges are network connectivity, lack of ICT usage at each level, lack of railway infrastructure, and lack of clear lows and regulations that support the involvement of privately owned service providers. The study suggests that in order to improve the services of Multimodal Transport System these key challenges should be solved. In order to encourage competition between private operators and the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise, the government or Ethiopian Maritime Affairs Authority is recommended to produce the possible new law or/and proclamation which requires private potential Multimodal Transport Operators to be established at the national level for developing and maintaining competitive advantage.
Evaluation of Performances of Intermodal Import-Export Freight Transport System in Ethiopia
Freight transport system that minimizes costs, increase conveniences, and environmentally safe has become the agenda worldwide since long before. This study was made with the main objective of assessing intermodal termed as " multimodal " freight transport service in Ethiopia. Data was collected by using structured questionnaire from randomly selected customers and multimodal freight transport section employees of Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise. The study was made in two stages using customers: first, they were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with the multimodal freight transport system; second, to evaluate their comparative satisfaction with the segmented/ " uni-modal " freight transport system against five major freight transport performance indicators. Customers were also asked to identify and rank top ten problems of freight transport logistics in Ethiopia. Data were analyzed using SPSS and excel sheets with descriptive statistics and the results were depicted using charts and tables. The study indicated that majority of customers were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with many of the performance indicators. The employees evaluated their organization as well performing relatively on more performance indicators. Both customers and employees evaluated the documentation performances as satisfying but cost and convenience as dissatisfying performances. Customers identified repetitive custom checking and waste of time in custom inspections process as the most severe problem in freight transport logistics in Ethiopia. The implementation of intermodal freight transport system to bring better change in import-export freight transport logistics of Ethiopia was in bitter challenge for customers due to a number of problems, except documentation performance that showed betterment.