Stakeholders buy into TTP, hail government over initiative

• Land transportation accounts for 80% of haulage

Nigeria is mainly an import driven country, although her economic activities is not devoid of exportation of goods and services. These economic activities are largely carried out through available 204,000kilometres network of roads.The land transportation is the dominant mode of transportation in the country, as it accounts for about 80 per cent of haulage and passengers’ movements.

Statistics from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), indicated that despite the impaired connectivity in the modes of transportation, the existing road network handles larger volume of tonnage and passengers from the port to the inter-lands where services are needed.The Bureau of Statistics reports specifically stated that between 2011 and 2016, a total of 52,262 passengers passed through the road network while a total of 543,842,425 tons of goods were discharged from the ports and moved through the Nigeria road network between 2013 and 2016

Although, there are other modes of transportation within the country, they lack interconnectivity required to form effective inter-modal systems of transportation. The roads networks exist on their own, so also is the rail and air transport.The road networks have been effective in the carriage of goods and services within the country and across neighboring countries.

But the available road network are in bad shape, hence the desired connectivity with other mode of transport has been impaired for decades without moves to fix them and put them in good shape, despite the increasing volume of goods and vehicular traffic, especially the articulated vehicles that ply them day-in-day-out.

Because of the high dependence on the road network for movement of goods and passengers across the country, crashes involving trucks and other articulated vehicles often occur with devastating effect. The human and economic losses in these accidents have been a source of concern to the government and its traffic agencies.

For instance, on May 31, 2015, there was horrific Onitsha tanker crash that claimed 46 lives, 20 vehicles, 1 tricycle and three motorcycles.
Between 2014 and 2016 alone the country recorded 4,663 truck accidents, 961 tanker accidents and 2,145 trailer accidents, making a total of 7,769 accidents of articulated vehicles in three years.Besides the incessant accidents along the existing road network due to high reliance on road transport, traffic congestion on the roads presents another nightmare.
 
This congestion arises from indiscriminate parking of trucks on transit, along the high ways to reduce the road width and smooth flow of traffic.
The truck drivers work throughout the day without adequate rest and sufficient sleep. These have been attributed to the course of their crashes on the roads and were compounded by the lack of enforcement of guidelines provided in the national traffic regulation, which forbids a commercial driver not to exceed five hours of consecutive driving on the highways.

According to FRSC, “No person shall drive, cause or permit any person employed by him to drive vehicle for any continuous period of five hours, for a period amounting in the aggregate to more than ten or ten and half hours in any period of twenty-four hours commencing two hours after midnight except where it is necessary for a driver to conclude a long distance journey, the period may be extended to twelve and half hours in all”
The national road traffic regulations also stipulated that “where the driver has not had at least eight consecutive hours of rest in any period of twenty-four hours calculated from the commencement of any period of driving and where the duration of a journey exceed five hours, the driver shall have intervals of not less than thirty minutes in every three hours of the said journey.”

These provisions call for improved road infrastructure and implementation of designed standards for all road types, including the provision of rest-stops and vehicle parking areas at regular intervals.This is the major reason  the port  economic regulator ,  Nigerian Shippers Council is only trying to fill the vacuum created by the absence of interconnectivity in modes of transportation when it came up with the idea of Truck Transit Park (TTP) for all articulated vehicles in the country.

The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, who lauded the moves by the council to establish TTP in strategic locations of the country, defined it as a public rest area, located off the road and designed to provide temporary rest locations for truck drivers, adding that it was in line with the countries road traffic regulations that would soon be enforced.

The council, which is providing the parks in Maraba, near Jos, Jebba, Lokoja, Obollo-afor, Ore, Port Novo, Ogere, and Onitsha described them as common user facility, off the highways, where truck drivers could conveniently park their vehicles, secure accommodation, procure fuel, food, shower and rest, besides procuring other basic supply like oil and spare-parts as well as service their vehicles.The parks are primarily intended for short-term safety breaks and also long-term Parking services in high-use corridors. When fully operational, the parks will provide security and easy tracking of cargoes along the transport chains.

The TTP project is expected to directly address transport infrastructure deficit by providing short-term resting place for truck drivers on long distance travels and reduce loss of lives and cargo through accidents due to fatigue on the part of the driver.The project, on completion, will be equipped with a gas station, hotel and motel, restaurants, mechanic workshop, fire station, police post, weigh bridges, automated cargo tracking system and a handful of other necessary facilities required to provide comfort for the truck driver and cargo interests.

Apart from reducing accidents and loss of lives within the 240,000kilometres of road network, the TTP project, on completion will help, in no small measure, to protect cargo interest by eliminating carnage and destruction to cargoes and vehicles; reduce pilferage and theft of cargoes vehicle on transit; afford cargo owners the means to monitor the movement of cargo with the provision of cargo tracking system at each park, improve trade  with land locked neighboring countries of Niger, Chad etc. and in the short run, increase revenue generation through improved trade relations.

TTPs will create employment opportunities; create wealth for the people within their locations through the development of ancillary businesses around the locations. This will no doubt, increase internally generated revenue of their host states.The Executive Secretary of the council, Barrister Hassan Bello said recently that the project would be executed using Public – Private- Partnership (PPP) model.

According to him, the PPP approach was adopted to attract private expertise and capital investment infrastructure and good service delivery. This he said would make government conserve its scarce public resources for other public needs.Similarly, Bello said that the approach would ensure the efficiency of the parks as available resources would be efficiently used on infrastructure to make service delivery more effective. The PPP option would also ensure the generation of expected employment and infrastructure development.

The FRSC boss, who described the project as conceived by the NSC as laudable, said a TTP should  provide long-term parking services, access to fuel, food, restrooms, shower, automated cargo tracking system, towing service, short-term brakes, basic supplies like oil  and spare parts, servicing and repair of haulage vehicles, fire station, police post and first Aid point.

“The FRSC remains steadfast to its mission and vision of ensuring a safe motoring environment for Nigerians and welcomes the initiatives of the NSC on the TTP program. The truck transit parks should be built to international standards and its operations only regulated to prevent violations.For TTP to be successful, the enforcement should be effective. To achieve this, the following should be adhered to; offices to be built for groups to ensure continual monitoring and compliance, adequate heavy duty tow trucks to be provided for the operatives for the removal of defiant trucks,  and the use of prosecution.

The  FRSC boss said, “The indiscriminate parking of trucks, trailers and tankers on the nation’s highways has been a major problem to safety, security and free movement of traffic. The TTP project, when fully implemented, will go a long way in addressing some of these challenges.“ With the setting up of a taskforce to ensure the enforcement, TTP is guaranteed to succeed”, he said as he enumerated advantages of the project to include free flow of traffic on highways, reduction In road traffic crashes in prone areas, enhanced security for the immediate environment, enhanced commercial activities and improved material revenue to government.

Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi, who spoke recently at a forum in Lagos, lamented the absence of interconnectivity of transport modes in the country. He apparently said the TTP would serve as a veritable linkage between the ports and the roads.“We have transport infrastructures in Nigeria. The problem is their linkage. We have airports in almost all the state’s capital. We are already linking the railway to the airport at Abuja.  There is a plan to concession the land ports. In most countries, people don’t visit the ports. 

“Once the goods arrive, they are transferred to inland dry ports. We will make them ports of imports and exports. By December, cargoes going to outside Lagos must be taken to their destinations. Only cargoes meant for Lagos should be left at Lagos ports.”The nation’s insurance sector is also throwing its weights behind the NSC and its projects. A commissioner at the National Insurance Commission said experts in the sector should be brought to provide expert advice to the government on the project, which he described  ‘highly risky’ as it involves people and goods.

“Insurance industry is ready to provide insurance support for all big projects like TTP. For this kind of projects, you can plan. The area of challenges is risk. The people, cargoes and trucks are at risk. That is why we need to come in. The national insurance commission should be brought in at all stages of the projects,” he stressed.

The President of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Mr. Taiwo Ogungbemile was apparently excited at the planned development of transit trucks parks in designated areas in the country, saying it was a welcome development.“We at AMATO, we consider the TTP project as a welcome development. The project like this is long overdue in Nigeria. Truck drivers need a place to rest. They need a place to park, fix their trucks. They need a secured area to stop and buy food, buy fuel and do one or two things before proceeding on their journey. This will reduce accidents on the highways.

“The goods they are carrying will also be secured. These and other reasons have made us to support the project. We only need security in the parking areas.  We need water for the drivers to shower and we need good accommodation to provide a resting place for the drivers. After the completion, we will not find truck parked on the road side again and this will reduce traffic congestion on the highways, especially at Ogere end of Ogun state. We support the NSC on this project because it falls within one of the mandate of protecting cargo interest. We have had cases when all cargoes are lost due to accident. That is bad business for the owners. This will stop or reduce drastically with TTP.”

The Chief of Executive Officer of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Mr. Oscar Onyema lauded the financing model for TTP, saying it would make special purpose vehicles (SPVs), meaning investors, to utilize the NSE’s platform to gain access to low cost, long-term capital for the project execution
“Leveraging established PPP funding mechanism, SPVs can utilize the NSE’s platform to gain access to low-cost, long –term capital. This can be achieved via public bond issuance by a project company. The SPVs involved in PPP projects can also utilize funding from listed funds focused on PPP infrastructure investment and a good case of this is our recent partnership with the Lagos state Government and vision scape sanitation solution, when N50billion medium term note to finance the implementation of the cleaner Lagos initiative (CLI) was issued. In general, the investment prospects for transportation infrastructure are promising”, Onyema said.

Continuing, he said facilities such as truck transit parks and inland dry post are prerequisites for any nation serious about boosting intra and cross border trade.” Therefore there must be concerted efforts to access capital   x that exist within and outside the capital market for the project”.To increase private investment in the nation’s transport sector and in project like TTP, Onyema harped on the needs to mitigate certain impediments, which he enumerated as inconsistency in the enforcement of policies, unpredicted regulatory regimes, that limit investors’ ability to protect investments, insufficient public sector capacity to design and implement PPP project and security concerns, corruption and other governance issues.