Ethiopian Economists Association

 

 

 

Ethiopian road transport Development: Problems, Challenges and constraints

 

 

 

Paper to be presented at the 5th international conference on the Ethiopian Economy

 

June 2007

 

 

 

 

Temesgen Aklilu1

 

February, 2007

Addis Ababa

 

 

 

 

 

Table of contents

 

Abstract                                                                                                                 2

  1. Introduction                                                                                                    3
  2. Some general characteristics of road transport mode.                                     4
  3. Significant roles of road transport in Ethiopia.                                                5
  4. Critical problems, constraints and challenges of Ethiopian road transport sector 10
  5. Conclusions and recommendations.                                                               12
  6. References                                                                                                       12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract

Ethiopia is one of the land locked country in Africa. This implies that the country’s socio economic development is expected to rely on the road transport in conveying goods and services through out the country. Despite of all these facts the sub sector is trapped by so many complex structural and non structural factors. The government and private sector are not working together in the right ways. The country in general has no comprehensive transport policy and strategy. There is poor development of public transport and little attention is given to environmental protection. There is series trend of motorization in which the used vehicles are extremely dominating. The traffic safety problem is ringing in every citizen’s mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.        Introduction

Transport permeates the whole of civilized world, like the arteries and veins in the human body. Transport services take people to places where they want to go and deliver goods to places where people require them.

The importance of transport in general can be described in:

a.       To survive in a competitive world, nations need transport to bring raw materials and also carryout finished products in and out of the country

b.      In reaping the benefits of locational optimization and economies of scale, industry needs a system of efficient transport to connect  to industries (production agents to market place)

c.       Transport is the means of fulfilling the need to get a work, to the shop and to contract other people.

d.      Efficient transport links are vital for state security and identity

Functionally, transport is to move people or goods from one place to another. This is the main operating objective if it is accomplished properly.

Majority of the transport operation services in almost all countries of the world is provided by one mode of transport, namely road transport. The importance of road transport is more significant in the case of developing countries. The road transport can be used at the small scale level to satisfy the need for conveying goods and people in a given country or location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.        Some general characteristics of road transport mode.

The road transport mode is named from the infrastructure (facilities) that the vehicles use. The road is specifically designed and surfaced highways for the passage of wheeled vehicles, each vehicle being controlled and guided independently by a driver.

 Some of the aims of road development institution include:

  • Trying to avoid long distance road traffic and particularly heavy goods vehicles from large numbers of towns (cities) so that they are relieved of dirty, noise and danger are associated with through traffic.
  • Creating and maintaining a comprehensive strategic trunk route network to promote economic growth, linking remote and less prosperous areas of the country to the national network.
  • To make sure that all major ports are connected to the major trunk network to promote the growth of the export trade.

From road transport service side, the road users are of numerous in nature. The road users include motor vehicles (private automobile, buses freight vehicles, and motor cycles etc) and non motorized vehicles like bicycles, pedestrians, carts and others.

Further more, the road transport services can be categorized in to urban road transport and interurban or rural transport modes.

Because of their nature, all modes of transport have their own strength and weakness. Beside this, some constraints are more severe in one of the transport modes.

Even though the road transport has a number of advantages, naturally it has number of disadvantages. Some of these include:

  • The size of the load is restricted by legislation which limits on vehicle size and weight, not by the prevailing technology and economics as with other modes.
  • The distance traveled in one day is the function of driver’s working hours limitations  which are also controlled by legislation (maximum permitted road speeds)
  • Road are not exclusively by one form of transport and congestion can occur which interfaces with schedule planning and time keepings.

 

 

3.        Significant roles of road transport in Ethiopia

Road transport plays vital roles in the effort to uplift the economy. It facilitates more the conveying of passengers and freight from origin to the destination.

Compared to other transport modes, road transport facilitates and is more accessible:

·        To accelerate product exchanges

·        To speed up distributions of industrials and agricultural products

·        To promote supply of raw materials

·        To easen  liaisons of people

·        To support defense forces

·        To help trade and tourism expansion, etc.

Generally, dynamic transport sector is a decisive factor, without which it is impossible to reach the goal national socio-economic development.

In Ethiopia road transport is growing and becoming the dominant sub sector over the other sub modes for the last couples of decades. Presently the share of road transport sub sector accounts for about 90 % revealing that the massive transport is becoming carried out through it in the country.

 With regard to road safety, the accident being happened in LDCs is high by the time it is decreasing in advanced countries. In Ethiopia for instance, different reports revealed that, on average, per 10,000 vehicles a death for 170 people takes place every year. This makes the country to be one of the few countries with high accident fatality in spite of less population of vehicles in the country. The main factor for such significant problems of road safety in this country is mainly the problem with the human factors, mainly the drivers’ ethics and capability rather than mechanical problems.

Despite the large area of the country, the length and coverage of standardized full weather condition roads in this country is very small. Until the last two years, we have a total of about 36000KM in which the coverage of asphalted road is very insignificant, only about 12-13% of all road system.

The average annual growth of the road is found to be only 1.7%. On the other hand, the vehicle imported into the country is increasing in alarming rate, on average, at 6% growth every year for the last 15 years. The human inputs factors, issuance of new driving licenses increases every year with an average of 0.8%-1%. In terms of magnitude the average licenses issued every year is about 60,000 (sixty thousand) in the country.

    The road transport sub sector is also characterized  by backward management system, old vehicles, lack of skilled man power on the sector, disintegrated transport sector institutions (among regions and between regions  and federal) relationship and communication. 

The majority of the vehicles in this country have low capacity of carrying capacity, both passengers and freight. For instance, 95% of passenger’s vehicles (including private automobile) have the capacity of less than 12 seats. On the other hand, out of the freight vehicles exist in this country 66% of them have a carrying capacity of less than 120 quintals. Out of these, majority of them have between 16-120 quintals.  

Table:1: Imported freight transport vehicles

 

 

Year

 

Less than 19 Qt

20- 90 Qts

More than 91 with trailer and without

Liquid cargo vehicles

Total

 

1987/88

-

74

71

86

231

 

1988/89

2

33

73

71

79

 

1989/90

24

146

17

16

203

 

1990/91

199

425

32

7

663

 

1991/92

423

716

283

23

1445

 

1992/93

217

985

270

32

1504

 

1993/94

243

969

621

138

1971

 

1994/95

416

1327

1078

184

3005

 

1995/96

651

1791

1286

139

3777

 

1996/97

308

1205

844

144

2501

 

1997/98

254

600

366

39

1259

 

1998/99

197

616

476

312

1604

 

1999/00

309

941

1379

544

3173

 

2000/01

528

2070

2633

91

5322

 

2001/02

381

2040

1181

46

3648

 

2002/03

316

3277

1608

46

3648

 

Average annual new vehicle

292

1076

764

131

 

 

% share since 1992

12

48

35

5

100

 

 

 

In general presently, a total of about 200, 000 vehicles exist and working in this country. Out of this figure 70% of them private cars and other passengers vehicles. Concerning freight transport vehicles, between the periods 1988-2002, the growth rate of population of vehicles in this country was about 38% per annum.

 

From passengers side the public transport change can be seen differently in urban public and inter urban public transport service provision. If we see the situation during the period 1992-2003, the service coverage of interurban public transport was showing significant progress.

 

In terms of urban public transport, the expansion of service is very limited only in Addis Ababa and with some efforts in Bahir Dar, Adama and DireDawa. Generally shows a confined service expansion in the country. It also shows that there is little attention given to expand new urban public modes except the old models of ordinary taxis and city buses.

 

 

 

 

Year

Urban Anbessa Bus public transport service

Addis Ababa

Jimma

 

Passengers in (1000)

Distance traveled in (million)

Passengers in (1000)

Distance traveled in (million

1991/92

108479

8598

2091