WAY FORWARD FOR URBAN PASSENGER
TRANSPORTATION IN ZIMBABWE
PRZYSZŁOŚĆ SEKTORA TRANSPORTU
MIEJSKIEGO W ZIMBABWE
Nkhoma Tafadzwa Cecilia
1Szpytko Janusz
21National University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Industrial Technology,
AC 93, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Email:nkhomatc@gmail.com
2AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering and Robotics, Al. Mickiewicza 30, PL 30-059 Krakow, Poland, Email:szpytko@agh.edu.pl
Abstract: This paper presents the urban passenger transportation system in Zimbabwe, against a background of the overall transportation system in the country. The paper looks at the history of the urban passenger transportation from Rhodesia era to present day Zimbabwe, after the economic meltdown. The urban passenger transportation sector of the economy has gone through a number have reforms that have changed the quality and capacity of its service. This paper looks at those reforms and the possible way forward.
Streszczenie: Scharakteryzowano istniejący system transportowy w Zimbabwe, a na jego tle sektor transportu miejskiego, który jest przedmiotem doskonalenia w kierunku podniesienia jakości obsługi i wydajności. Omówiono podejmowane przedmiotowe reformy i kierunki wymaganych zmian systemowych.
Zimbabwe is a land locked country situated in the southern part of Africa. It has three modes of transportation within the country namely, road, rail and air. For water transportation of imports and exports, Zimbabwe relies on two of its neighbouring countries, South Africa and Mozambique. In Zimbabwe transportation also plays a role in the manufacturing industry. The transportation industry in Zimbabwe covers both the transportation of goods and human beings. Since the colonial era in Zimbabwe, the transportation industry has been evolving with influence from economic, political and social factors. The railway
construction in Zimbabwe was part of the Cape to Cairo dream in the 19th century.
Today, the railway service in Zimbabwe is controlled by a parastatal, the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ). The NRZ has lost its market share in urban passenger transportation to road transportation. This has been due to a number of factors that include efficiency, comfort, safety, reliability and viability of the business. Transportation of passengers by air has not gained much market share due to cost of service, reliability and infrastructural challenges. As the country continues to develop it has inevitably experienced an urban drift. This drift has changed the demand and supply statistics of the transportation sector. The most promising mode of urban passenger transportation is road transportation. Below is the outline of the three modes of transport from the colonial era to the post independence era and the possible way forward for the road transportation industry as its demand increases.
2. TRANSPORTATION MODES IN ZIMBABWE
2.1. Air transportation
Zimbabwe has a total of 128 airports within its borders, 47 civil airports, 19 military airports and 62 private airports. Two of the civilian airports have international airport status. These are namely The Harare International airport and the Joshua Nqabuko Nkomo Airport. The hub of the national airliner is the Harare International airport in the capital city. The national airliner, Air Zimbabwe, is a parastatal and the only local airliner in Zimbabwe. The local airport lost its hub status for many airlines due to competition from Johannesburg, South Africa. The national airliner in its peak times used to fly 25 routes but at the moment is only flying 7 routes. As in other business in Zimbabwe the economic meltdown era had a very negative impact on the national airliner. During this era which saw the Zimbabwean dollar being demonetised, unviable charges for trips were the main cause for the fall of the operations at Air Zimbabwe. The frequency of intra and international trips decreased with some being totally cut off from operation. This has left the air transportation industry in the nation crippled.
The railway network in Zimbabwe was constructed during the British colonial era. The construction of the Beira and South Africa railway lines started in 1892 and 1893 respectively. The railway line focuses on the major urban centres and transverse through the main farming and mining regions of the country. The country’s total rail distance is approximately 2760 km and over 90% is single track (Copenhagen). Zimbabwe’s rail transport plays an important transit function in the southern part of Africa and has links with contiguous railways as follows:
Mozambique- Machipanda/ Mutare and Sango/ Chicualacuala, South Africa- Beitbridge/ Transvaaal,
Botswana- Plumtree/ Ramokgwebana, Zambia- Victoria falls/ Livingstone.
The railway network in Zimbabwe is shown in Fig 1 below.
Fig.1. Railway Network in Zimbabwe (Source: www.nrz.co.zw)
The country has one main operator for rail transport, i.e. the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ). Locally passenger transportation by rail has fast lost appeal to the commuters especially over long distances as the service is inefficient. Like all other state enterprises, during the economic meltdown, the NRZ’s operations collapsed. As road transporters were experiencing viability challenges before the demonetisation of the local currency, the NRZ offered subsidised urban passenger transportation. During this period, to many of the commuters it was the only available and cheap mode of transportation so it gained popularity especially
among the low income commuters. The introduction of the US dollar saw the return of independent players in the urban passenger industry and commuter deserted railway transportation. At present the railway offers transportation mainly for transportation of goods and operates passenger services at a throttled level. 2.3. Road transportation
Zimbabwe has approximately 97 267 km of road network and 18 481km (19%) is paved (Nation Master). This mode of transportation serves a wide range of sectors, from intra-national passenger and goods travel and inter-national passenger and goods travel. Provision of public transport is of paramount importance to the development of Zimbabwe as increased mobility of people and increased accessibility of facilities bring better livelihood. With the rate of urban shift the need to address this becomes more pressing. This mode of transportation is vital in the manufacturing sector as it ferries employees to work on a daily basis and transports manufactured goods and raw materials to and from the manufacturing companies.
2.4. Imports and exports transportation
Commercialisation of railways led to increase in transport rates making rail transport less competitive than road. Spread of the agricultural production into the communal areas away from the railway line due to indigenisation has reduced the role of railways in agriculture significantly. Development of inter-African trade especially with South Africa during the 1990’s has moved the transport demand towards the road. Before the inter-Africa trade development Zimbabwean railway line served as a link to the ports in Southern Africa particularly South Africa and Mozambique. Due to the lack of foreign currency in the hyper-inflationary period the nation experienced a container deficit as imports lowered and neared zero. This has seen freight going by road to Johannesburg where it is containerised.
In the transportation of freight the modal split between rail and road transport is in favour of road transport. Cognisance of this fact gave rise to a number of strategic implementations that seek to maintain and upgrade the national road network. Recently was the introduction of tollgates along the country’s major highways and it is expected to go a long way in covering expenses related to road maintenance and upgrading. Freight to and Zambia uses the Zimbabwe road network. The roads of Zimbabwe also carry local produce in within the country from agricultural product to minerals.
Foreign trade and transport links in Zimbabwe have changed dramatically as a result of political shifts in Zimbabwe and its neighbouring countries. Examples of such shifts include liberalisation of trade and transport, peace in Mozambique and the end of the trade embargo on South Africa in 1994.
Public transportation has evolved over the years with at least three distinct phases. Road transportation in Zimbabwe may be distinctly divided into three eras i.e. before 1980, 1980 to 1988 period and 1988 to date (Maunder et al. 1994). Prior to independence the provision of public transport was mainly the role of the local authorities. The service was offered under a franchise agreement between the local authorities and one bus company (the United Passenger Transport). This of cause was a case of monopoly.
After independence the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ), undertook a nationwide exercise to redress socio-economic imbalances in the nation. One of the steps it took was the acquisition of major shareholding status by the government in the sole company that was providing passenger transport. This period also saw the legalisation of the informal sector transporters popularly known as ‘emergency taxis’.
In 1990 the government embarked on an exercise to liberalise the economy through the Economic Structural Adjustment Program (ESAP). This saw the deregulation of the passenger transport in Zimbabwe (Mbara, 2006). In the short term this brought forth a lot of positive gain to the society, such as:
unprecedented increase in the number of privately operated public transport vehicles. This increased the capacity in a substantial way,
expansion of the public transport network, as private operators served commuted in previously marginalised areas of the city,
and increased quality of service as waiting times reduced.
In the late 1990’s a declining trend in the service began slowly as the macro economic challenges took their toll. These challenges among others included erratic fuel supplies with hyper-inflation being the main factor. This downward trend continued into the year 2008 where inflation was a record over one million percent. This gave rise to reduced mobility between cities, town and rural areas. Inter-urban commuters improvised by walking and cycling. All these downward trends throttled mobility and further reduced accessibility which was still not developed. At this point rail transportation that had since been abandoned by commuters began to gain popularity. At this point the modal split between rail and road shifted in favour of rail (Mbara, 1994).
Cycling in Zimbabwe is fast gaining popularity as the vehicle passenger transportation is failing to offer efficient, reliable and demand responsive public transport service. Though it is a cheap and environment friendly mode of transportation, cycling still lacks appropriate supporting infrastructure to guarantee it as a safe mode of transportation in Zimbabwe. Cycling in the city centre and in the city peripheral is highly risky and virtually unpractised. With the appropriate infrastructure non-motorised transport is a promising means of transportation within the towns and cities.
Year 2009 saw the suspension of the local currency to adopt the use of foreign currencies mainly, US$, ZAR, Pula, Euro and the Pound. This move countered the upward trend of inflation and brought a bit of sanity in macro economics. To date
the public transport system is still not able to meet demand, provide reliable services and is slowly drifting away from the safe status. Commuters rely on any vehicle to move from one point to the other including lorries and personally owned vehicles (car sharing).
As the nation recovers from the economic slump that it has gone through over the last decade, human resource is of paramount importance. There is need to facilitate mobility of the workforce from different areas as they seek to fulfil social and economic roles. The focus has to be on a global transportation standard. Over the years as the economy depreciated, the so did the state of the roads as they were not being serviced. A lot of the country’s road have exceeded their life span and have lacked maintenance (Biti, 2010). As the economy turned towards the upward trend it has seen an increased volume of traffic as individuals import the cheap ex-Japanese vehicles. The increase in human mobility has mainly been on an individual capacity, with individuals acquiring personal vehicles, but not much has taken place in the provision of public transport.
Since the days of the ESAP the transportation industry among other industries was deregularised. Coupled with the lack of a fully implemented transport policy, this has left the service in the sector leaving a lot to be desired. Long waiting times, unsafe and unreliable service, have been the order of the day. The aim of deregularising the industry was to empower the population that had been deprived of economic empowerment during the colonial era, and this constituted mainly of the black majority. As a result of this background, all the service providers in the urban passenger transportation service are informal businesses. As is expected, the size of informal businesses, in this sector no matter how many they may be, is not enough to service a whole urban population.
The increased number of informal players in the industry makes it next to impossible to regulate that sector. As much as they have a will to stay in business, the informal transporters have a considerable challenge in terms of capital for their businesses. This has seen them boycotting the municipal fares and this obviously has a negative impact of the running and maintenance of the roads they use. As a result at present the local authorities have the responsibility of maintaining the roads, but they have no income with which to do so as the transporters boycott the fares. This situation, to say the least, is catastrophic to the transportation industry as this will eventually see the road network totally dysfunctional.
2.6. The future of transportation in Zimbabwe
Transportation plays a very crucial role in any economy and from the above account of the Zimbabwe transport situation it is clear that as the country realises its potential it needs a sound and better transportation system. The problem of transportation is a multi-facetted one with a lot of stakeholders involved in the delivery of a sound transport system. The issue of policy cannot go unmentioned at this point. Zimbabwe launched a transport policy in 2003 which was reviewed in 2005. The issue of infrastructure, safety, reliability, automation and cost among
others contribute to the complexity of the transportation problem, not to mention the changes in the targeted market.
There is no doubt that the present day situation of Zimbabwean transport is lagging behind compared to the global standards. Zimbabwe has an agro-based economy and relies also on the vast mineral deposits across the country. To effectively maximize these industries, the logistics and management of transportation come into play. An area that needs attention, among others is passenger transportation. Mobility of people will see an increase in the productivity of individuals in the nation. Passenger transportation in Zimbabwe has been characterised with a lot of carnage and this is an area that needs to be addressed. As the nation seeks to reap more gains from the tourism industry, hospitality alone cannot satisfy this ambition, improved air transport infrastructure plays a key role that will ensure accessibility of tourist attractions. As the manufacturing industry is being resuscitated it is important to ensure efficiency in goods and service delivery. 2.7. Transportation system management (TSM) in Harare (Capital City)
In all the country’s towns and cities the problem of transportation needs to be addressed urgently but this paper will concentrate on Harare as a case study as it is the capital. The general aim of TSM is to improve the efficiency of transportation systems by bringing the supply of existing facilities into better balance with demand by an approach to optimise the movement of people and goods rather than vehicles (Wright et al, 1998) .The TSM method is meant to bring a shift in the demand-supply equilibrium of the transportation system. TSM has basically four classes though the classification of some measures is not clearly defined. The basic classes are:
measures by which facility demand is reduced effectively, measures by which facility supply is increased effectively,
measures by which facility demand and supply are both reduced effectively, measures by which facility demand is reduced effectively while supply is
increased effectively it they reach a viable equilibrium. 2.7.1. Measures to reduce demand
This looks at measures that can be introduced, without altering the level of transportation supply, to induce travellers to use existing vehicles at higher load factors, switch to non-motorised modes or reduce either trip length or frequency. The current situation in the capital may not allow any higher load factors as the existing transporters are actually failing to meet with the demand. Introduction of bicycle and pedestrian facilities is an avenue that can be looked into. At present the state of road markings is a serious cause of concern with respect to safety regarding road use. The roads markings have long faded making it very dangerous for road users. Pedestrian crossing points need to be marked to make it safe for the pedestrian and for the pedestrian who makes intra city trips the walkways need to
be wider and safer. Introduction of rails on the side of pedestrian pavements is one way of increasing the safety of the pedestrian.
The use of bicycles within the city has not been very popular but that is one way of reducing demand on the existing transportation facilities. A number of factors have contributed to this neglect of bicycles. There has not been any infrastructure to accommodate cyclists; this includes cycling pavements, bicycle parking lots and even the mere promotion of non-motorised modes. The introduction of this mode of transportation will take a lot of effort. It is likely to face resistance from the psychological point of view; the strengths it presents from the environmental and economic point of view will go a long way in addressing the psychological challenge. This step needs, of cause, the tangible support of the local authorities and the government. Ways in which they can show their support is by modification of the current road infrastructure to accommodate more the pedestrian and the non-motorised mode user, also the duty charged on the importation of bicycles has to be pegged at a rate that supports this plan. Use of non-motorised modes will see the reduction on demand with respect to the existing transportation service suppliers and definitely decrease in pollution related to transportation.
Another way to reduce the demand of transportation facilities is the use of communications in lieu of transportation. The internet, fax, phones and computers can go a long way in reducing the mobility of people into the CBD and within the CBD. Target areas will be the use of electronic communication in the service sector, for example increased use of plastic money and internet banking will reduce client traffic to the banks. Availability of customer on-line services for example sales and marketing, customer complaint forwarding and on-line ordering and payment. Promotion of this highly electronic business environment needs support from the business industry. This should be lucrative to the business sector as it not only helps ease transportation needs in the country but it also increases the companies’ competiveness on the international market. This move is likely to meet with support from the business sector giving it a higher chance of easy implementation, though it needs a high level of commitment to cyber security from all stakeholders some groundwork has been done in this regard and a ministry looking into Information and Communication Technology has been set-up in the government.
2.7.2. Measures to increase supply
Increasing the supply of traffic is one way of tackling the challenge. In Zimbabwe solely increasing the supply as a way of improving transportation service may not be a good recommendation as the major players in the service provision sector do not seem have the capacity to increase the supply. Going along this route will seek the substitution of informal operators with a formal concern.
One way of achieving decrease in both demand and suply would be to introduce High Occupancy Vehicles (HOV’s) and preferential treatment for them. Setting reserved roads or lanes for busses will both decrease demand and simultaneously decrease the supply. Applying the concept of auto restricted zones such as pedestrian malls and bus-only areas will help manage the transport system.
3. CONCLUSION
In light of the above observations, suggestions and considerations, what Zimbabwe needs right now is an immediate transport system management while working on the long term (strategic) plan for the transportation industry. The above work not only narrows to the transportation of urban passengers but further narrows its view to the capital city. This shows the extent to which the country is still far from the ideal. The above suggestions particularly for the urban passenger need to be merged with statistical data and relevant operations management techniques in order for them to be implemented fully and to suit well in the benefitting society. There are a number of areas that contribute to the transportation problem and the following are some of the potential areas of pursuit:
transportation pricing.
regulation of the transportation industry,
current land use allocations and their impact on transportation service provision,
best ways to introduce change in transportation service provision taking into account the environmental, psychological and economic factors and impact, the relationship of urban passenger transportation with other transportation
sectors,
transport service deregularisation: the pros and cons, use of telematics in the transportation industry.
4. REFERENCES
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6. Biti T. (2010): Zimbabwe National 2011 budget, page 86, www.nationalmaster. com.
7. Wright P.H. et al. (1998): Transportation Engineering: Planning and Design. John Wiley and Sons.
Prof. dr hab. inż. Janusz Szpytko (Full Prof., D.Sc., Ph.D.,
M.Sc., B.Sc. C.Eng.), AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robo-tics. Specialist in designing and exploitation of transport systems and devices, automatics, safety and reliability, monitoring and diagnostics, decision making systems, telematics. Author or co-author of more then 350 publications, both in Polish and English. Member of: STST KT PAN, TC IFAC, SEFI, ISPE, PTD, PTB, PSRA, ISA, SITPH and others. Visiting professor at the universities in: UK, France, Canada, Italy, Greece, Canada, Laos. Coordinator and member of several R&D projects both national and international. Organizer and member of several scientific and programme committees of international and national conferences and symposiums.
Ms Tafadzwa Cecilia Nkhoma, Zimbabwe, M.Sc., BSc. Eng.,
National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe. Teaching assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering NUST. Main interest: manufacturing systems and operations management, chemical engineering, transportation.
