SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA—THE FUTURE

SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA—THE FUTUREAuthor(s): JOHN HOWESource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 123, No. 5229 (AUGUST 1975), pp. 594-604Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41372195 .

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SURFACE TRANSPORT IN

AFRICA-THE FUTURE

A paper by

JOHN HOWE, BTech{Eng), M Sc, PhD, CEng, MICE, MIHE

of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory , Department of the Environment, and Chairman , Transportation Panel , Intermediate Technology Development Group , given to a

Joint Meeting of the Commonwealth Section of the Society with the Royal African Society , on

Tuesday , 22nd April , 1975 with James Murray , С MG in the Chair

The Chairman: I am here in place of Sir Evelyn Hone, who I am sorry to say was suddenly taken unwell. In his absence it is my very great pleasure this afternoon to introduce Dr. John Howe. Dr. Howe has had wide practical experience of Africa. He spent five years in Eastern Africa, largely in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia, with what was then called the Tropical Section of the Trans- port and Road Research Laboratory. During that time Dr. Howe carried out research on transport planning, and he visited West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana, on various

advisory missions in connection with road research matters. He has also visited Egypt as well as other developing countries in Asia and the Caribbean. He has published many articles on these subjects and in particular has researched and written about the history and development of the road system of Kenya. He has now been working in this field for thirteen years, during which he has also spent two years at the University of Surrey teaching transport planning in developing countries. I am sure all of us here are looking forward to his paper. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Dr. Howe.

The following paper , which was illustrated , was then given. ж T n s simplest, forecasting is no more l' than the intelligent extrapolation of

-Vpast trends. Such a process presumes that the underlying economic and social conditions of the past will remain sensibly unchanged in the future. Obviously in present times this could not be presumed so and other methods have to be used. Before discussing these, or indeed actually employing any forecasting technique, it is necessary to establish the present nature of the thing to be forecast ; in this case surface transport in Africa.

For a mixture of historical and physical reasons, surface transport in Africa is

594

dominated by the rail and road systems. Although the waterways were important avenues for the initial penetration of the continent, with the exception of the Zaire River system and the Sudanese sections of the Nile, they have relatively little signifi- cance as a commercial means of transport. The reasons for this are mostly physical: troublesome entry to the rivers from the sea because of sand bars ; extreme seasonal fluctuations in river water levels; and fre- quent fierce currents and unnavigable cataracts. The great inland lakes are a significant means of transport locally, and in isolated cases are important links between



AUGUST I975 SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA

the rail services of different countries, but they are generally too remote either from the sources of exports or population concen- trations to attract much traffic. Similarly, pipelines have yet to make a significant contribution to total transport movements.

RAIL TRANSPORT IN AFRICA The railway's early dominance of surface transport in Africa has continued for much of the last three decades. Since 1946 the movement of goods by rail has expanded at an average annual rate of just over $ per cent. This overall figure disguises fairly large regional differences with South, East and Central Africa having growth rates close to the average, and North and West Africa averaging only 3 and 2 per cent respectively. Apart from Southern Africa's dominance of total goods movements (approximately 66 per cent of all tons-km in 1972) the other main geographical feature of rail transport is the continuing overseas export-import orientation.

It is well known that the period of colonial occupation left Africa a legacy of rail systems orientated primarily towards the export of raw produce to Europe. Although the last two decades have seen more than 9000 km. of new line opened the export- import orientation remains. There are few of the lateral connections that make up true railway networks. Between the former French and English administered countries railway connections do not at present exist at all.

The lack of inter-territorial rail links is obviously a major obstacle to the promotion of intra-Africa trade. Possibly not so obvious is the reinforcement given by the structure of the tariffs of most rail systems. These were designed to facilitate low-cost long hauls of certain products.1 In particular cases the effective freight rate was at a very low level, sometimes even below cost, since the rates for high-valued imports were set so as to subsidize these other movements. However, transport routes between countries generally consist of poor standard roads over which movement takes place in small consignments at relatively high rates. The result is, as Gelineau2 notes, ťa rate anisotropy that dismembers the African market, at least for the African enterprises, and para- lyses attempts at inter-African economic co- operation. The ratio between freight rates for movement in different directions may thus vary from 1 to 4, or even 7 or 8.' It is frequently cheaper for country A to import

from overseas industries rather than obtain the same product from the infant industry of neighbour, or near neighbour, B.

Overcoming the present lack of inter- territorial rail links will require massive expenditures. Gelineau3 estimates that to achieve a basic integration of the systems of East, West and Central Africa will require the construction of 13,000 km of new line at a (1968) cost of £545 million; he thinks the task could easily be accomplished by the end of the century. To put this proposal into perspective, it would only increase the density of railways in the region by 37 per cent. Although this might seem substantial, in spite of the impressive additions of the last two decades and even allowing for the extensive desert area, the absolute density of railways in Africa remains low. With a population of about 10 inhabitants /km2, Africa is comparable with the USSR, but it has only a single kilometre of railway track for every 392 km2, whereas Russia has 1 for every 166 km2 of territory. (In the European Community there is 1 km of railway line for every 13 km2.) The balance is, however, being redressed because in addition to Tanzam, work has started on the first phase (332 km) of the 936 km Transgabon railway.4 There are also ambitious plans, other than those put forward by Gelineau, in states of preparation varying from firm intentions to vague hopes, for further extensions in many other countries.

Perhaps the biggest impediment to the implementation of these plans is the poor financial viability of most public railways. With the exception of a few railways exclusively for mineral extraction, the rest, according to the World Bank, are in a state of decline. 'Most of the railways borrowing from the Bank are saddled with extensive systems built before the advent of the road transport industry, and with public service, employment, and pricing obligations which threaten their financial viability. This has led to patterns of serious under-investment which in turn have threatened the railways' ability to fulfil their economic rôles. This default on the part of the railways has tended to inflate the demand for road transport that might otherwise be uneconomic.'5 Many railways are caught in a vicious circle of financial deficits, under-investments, declining service, loss of traffic and still larger deficits. Clearly a continuation of present trends will result in line closures, imminent in Sierra Leone. Furthermore,

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS AUGUST I975

unless these trends can be reversed or, at the very least, arrested it would appear to make no sense to extend the rail network; that would merely increase the size of the existing financial burden.

ROAD TRANSPORT IN AFRICA There are no reliable estimates of actual road usage - ton or passenger km - in the post- 1 945 years but some inferences can be drawn from changes in the number of motor vehicles and the length of the road system. The number of vehicles has increased at an average of more than 7 per cent annually, and the length of all roads at a rate of about 3 per cent, but of paved roads almost 9 per cent annually. These figures indicate that the tonnage of goods moved by road has probably been growing at about double the rate of that by rail. Africa's experience is a reflection of that of the rest of the world. Where alternative modes exist road transport has steadily increased its share of total movement demands, passengers and goods, at the expense of rail.6 Indeed the post- 1945 era has seen road transport emerge as a serious, even deadly (e.g. Sierra Leone) competitor to rail. The strange thing about this competition is that many countries have involun- tarily assisted in the downfall of their own rail systems by constructing modern highways parallel to rather than feeding the railway, with little effective control of the predictable pressure from road transport to move goods previously transported by rail.7 Unburdened by track costs and common carrier obligations, and with little regulation of over-loading or the frequency of operations, it is not surprising that road transport has been able to attract what was formerly the railway's most profitable business.

Yet the main highways are few, and away from them road transport costs rise steeply. There is no international standard highway crossing a major axis of the continent either north- south on the Western or Eastern flanks, or east-west through the middle of Africa. Excluding Lesotho and Swaziland, both of which are enclaves within South Africa, the remaining 37 independent African states would, if they were to have one road link with each of their neighbours, have a total of 75 road links. But of a possible 75 links, at present only 20 are said by the ECA to be of 'all-weather' standard, 49 consist of partially improved dry-weather roads, and 6 are non-existent. There is considerable awareness of the poor state of international

596

surface transport in Africa, but proposals for alleviating it tend to favour roads rather than rail. Although in the past there have been a number of trans-continental rail schemes, there have been no serious attempts to promote them recently. In contrast the ECA has been actively promoting a number of major road projects. The routes being considered are the :

T rans- African Highway (Mombasa-Lagos) Trans- Saharan Highway Trans- West African Highway (Dakar-

Fort Lamy) and Trans-East African Highway (Gabarones-

Cairo). Obtaining a fair but succinct estimate of

national road development is complicated by the large differences exhibited by different countries. Suffice it to say that only 12 per cent of Africa's roads are paved and overall densities appear very low by world standards. One recent estimate is that the density of 'all-weather' roads is, at approximately 1.2 km/100 km2, less than 1 per cent of that in major European countries, only 2 per cent of that in a large continent such as North America, and just 14 per cent of the world average.8

THE COMPARATIVE POSITION OF SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA

Notwithstanding the impressive progress of the past few decades in all forms of surface transport, Africa remains a relatively Un- connected' continent and both road and rail development lag far behind world standards. Past experience tells us that redressing the balance will require vast resources. But 'how much' over 'what period' and, more important, ťwhy should it be done ?' The answer to the last question may seem too obvious to be worth the asking, but it is particularly vital because it determines priority and hence conditions the answers to the other two questions. For example, it has been estimated that to provide a (recommen- ded minimum) all-weather road density of 3.33 km/100 km2 in Africa,9 compared to a present world average of 8.4 km/ 100 km2, will require an additional 613,700 km in length at a rough cost of £12,870 million. The task is estimated to take 45 years and it would still leave the density of all-weather roads at only 40 per cent of present world levels! Gelineau's estimate of rail needs covered only ťbasic' interconnections in East, West and Central Africa, and unsurprisingly to-day the costs used seem optimistic. More




recent estimates based on United Nations10 figures suggest that a modest doubling of present densities, built to bare minimum standards, would cost at least £3з000 million for the track alone and at the rate of construction prevailing from 1956-69 would take about 100 years to build!

These gloomy forecasts can be objected to on a number of grounds. It is not clear what 'need' means. Another major drawback of evaluating needs in this way is that it ignores inequities in the present distribution of transport facilities and the ability of individual countries to finance improvements. Almost invariably the countries with the poorest transport systems are those least able to afford their betterment. More argu- able, however, is the notion that such vast sums should be committed to extending the transport network and the implication that if they are not the consequences for Africa are dire. For the past few decades transport has consistently absorbed one of the highest proportions, if not the highest proportion, of development capital in many countries. (In Nigeria approximately 47 per cent of all public investment was at one time (1955-9) allocated to transport.11) Yet in a recent analysis Bejakovic12 was unable to find any evidence of a positive relationship between the proportion of investment in transport and the subsequent rate of economic growth.

TRANSPORT INVESTMENTS AND ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT The long-standing view of transport as the 'catalyst' for economic development has been largely disproved.13 Its rôle is now recog- nized as 'primarily a permissive one, the existence of adequate transport being a necessary but not sufficient condition' for stimulating economic activity.14 Because of this there is general agreement that improvements in transport should only be under- taken as part of a carefully co-ordinated programme of investments in all the sectors necessary to achieve a given development objective. Unfortunately, this is not often the case at present due to the complex administrative processes involved and inade- quacies in planning procedures or shortage of skilled manpower; consequently much existing and proposed investment in transport is still of a highly speculative nature. Concern about the speculative nature of much transport investment is compounded by the recently worsened prospects of many African countries.

FUTURE INVESTMENT PROSPECTS In many ways the world entered a new era with the rapid rise in the prices of raw materials, beginning in 1970, and more dramatically with the oil prices towards the end of 1973. Moussa15 argues that the new situation calls for a re-classification of what were hitherto regarded as the 'developing countries'. He defines three new groupings:

the opulent nations (the Emirates of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) in which, owing to their oil and small population, per capita income has risen to a high level ; the emergent nations, which are just overcoming their poverty either through a favourable combination of size, location and natural resources (Singapore, Gabon) or are in a state of vigorous development because of their size and big reserves of raw materials (Iran, Brazil, Nigeria); and the proletarian nations, which have a very low per capita income (approximately £100 or less) few natural resources and a poor geographic situation. In Africa only Libya can be regarded as

opulent; Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa as emergent, with the Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Morocco, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Tunisia and Zaire as probably emergent. The remaining countries comprising 52 per cent of the area and 44 per cent of the population must with little equivocation be classified as proletarian. For these Moussa predicts a grim outlook: 'the proletarian nations which do not possess big oil reserves of their own can look forward to little potential enrichment from most of their other raw materials, but they are subject to real impoverishment as consumers of petroleum products .... though part of the Third World is now in a position to think in terms of economic improvement, there is another part which has to think in terms of avoiding collapse'.

It is too soon to know if Moussa' s analysis is correct, but there can be little doubt that the development prospects of the proletarian nations of Africa have worsened. Although the position of the emergent countries is better, most are poor at present and the list of social needs seemingly endless. In both cases, therefore, it is an appropriate time to review the rôle of surface transport in promoting future development. Can existing facilities be made to play a more effective part than in the past ? Does the basis for

597




assessing transport investment priorities need to be changed? Questions like this need to be asked, and candidly answered, because transport is unlikely to continue to enjoy its position of privilege in relation to investment funds unless it becomes more efficient in serving the needs both of economic and social development. For the proletarian nations particularly 'efficiency' is likely to be the watchword.

The upheavals begun in 1970 have not subsided, so speculation on what might happen to surface transport is not a very productive enterprise. Some analysis of what ought to happen, based on more fundamental and long-range goals of economic and social development, may be more to the point.

Surveys of new transport technologies by both the United Nations and the OECD suggest that in most developing countries, traditional forms are likely to continue as the main modes of movement. Therefore any radical improvements to surface transport, if they are to take place at all, will have to be effected to present systems.

NETWORK ORIENTATION AND REGIONAL TRADE

The export orientation of Africa's surface transport, the lack of inter-territorial links and the efforts to change the situation have already been described. Given the economic realities of the present it is only prudent to re-examine these schemes, particularly the major and costly Trans- African transport routes.

Theoretically the major justification for these routes is to be found in the promotion of inter-regional trade. Present market sizes in Africa are very small: only three states have populations of more than 20 million inhabitants; 25 African States have fewer than 5,000,000 inhabitants - in fact that is also the average population, and of course incomes are very low. It is argued that 'the size of the market is of fundamental importance for everything related to the industrial production. For the unit cost of production varies inversely to the productive capacity, and the largest units are those with the lowest production costs.'16

This view not only implicitly supports development through industrialization, but also explicitly champions the notion of economies in the scale of production. Neither of these can be accepted without equivocation, but this is not the place to debate industrialization as a development strategy

598

for Africa. With regard to the other notion, Sir Fred Catherwood in a recent lecture17 said that when he was at NEDO he tried to track down the elusive economies of big industry , but concluded they just didn't exist, except in the academic mind. He thought the day of the giant plant was over and that they would gradually be replaced by smaller, more human outfits. (E. F. Schumacher1 8 has mounted a more fundamental assault on the necessity for 'large' markets as a pre- condition for economic development.) These arguments do not deny the existence of economies of scale, only that they can always be presumed to exist. The problem therefore is to identify those circumstances in which enlargement of a market and the resultant trade might provide a valid justification for investment in transport.19

The search for the right circumstances is complicated by the circular nature of the relationship between transport and regional trade. Figuratively the transport planner is saying 'tell me what you have to transport from A to В and I will tell you what it will cost, i.e. what type of system is required', and is answered with the development planner's question, 'tell me what the transport from here to there will cost and I will tell you what there will be to transport'. Evidence that the circularity of this relationship is not fully appreciated can be seen in the disagreement that exists over the order in which the barriers to inter-regional trade should be removed; in particular whether transport should 'lead' or 'lag' the dismant- ling of the other obstacles. By their actions in promoting inter-regional transport improvements, some of which are actually being constructed in advance of complemen- tary trade agreements, the ECA and many individual countries feel it should lead, though purely political motives for these actions cannot be altogether discounted. Ezenwinyinya,20 however, expresses a more cautionary viewpoint, 'that a transport system linking up different parts of a sub- region can be successfully established only within a regional framework cannot be over- stated'. It is necessary to be quite clear: constructing transport links in anticipation of regional trade agreements is a return to regarding it as a development catalyst: the degree of speculation involved in such an action can vary considerably, but speculative it most definitely is.

Of course in the best of best possible worlds 'lead' or 'lag' questions would not




arise: changes would be simultaneous. But this rarely happens, and a way must be found of co-ordinating investments in transport and all the other concomitants necessary to promote regional trade such that the probability of failure, or even of mis-timed actions, is reduced to the remotest possibility.

Gelineau21 offers a very practical solution, which is : to provide the industrial and agricultural experts with a hypothesis of the re-integration of the African market; that is to say, essentially a hypothesis of a new ( transport ) infrastructure and a hypothesis of tariffs. With this data the industrial and agricultural experts would be in a position to study the new industrial locations, to verify the competitive power of the African products, and, finally to propose a complete set of new operations that would yield a financial return in the market so reintegrated. Once these proposals had been made, the transport econo- mists could then determine :

(a) the traffic flows that would be generated by these new operations, thus testing the justification of the tariff hypothesis;

(b) an approximate estimate of the social value, thus testing the economic justification of the investment in the infrastructure.

The clear suggestion here is for a long- term African transport policy .

TRANSPORT POLICY AND INTER-MODAL COMPETITION

Although considerable progress has been made in defining an international system of road routes, agreement on the technical characteristics of vehicles (axle-loads, gross weights, etc.) is still lacking in most areas. More significant, however, is the need for an African policy embracing all forms of surface transport: road, rail and water, and the regulation of competition between them.

For the very long distances that inter- regional communication in Africa involves, expert opinion agrees that any sensible system of cost-based charging is sure to favour rail services in preference to road. This makes it important to reverse the present downward spiral in the fortunes of many railways. The necessary changes are detailed and have been canvassed lengthily elsewhere. Perhaps, however, this process of revitalization would be stimulated by re- casting purely 'national' problems in an 'African' framework. There is a certain urgency about agreements on problems such as the harmonization of technical characteristics - buffer heights, couplings, etc. - so

that African states will not face insoluble difficulties when the time for interconnections finally comes.

Arguments favouring railways as the main means for future long-distance goods movement are reinforced by considerations arising from the source of Africa's energy. Oil and its products account for 70 per cent or more of the total energy consumption of African countries, and with the exception of the major producers most are net importers of energy: in 13 countries the reliance upon imported energy is sensibly total.22 Rail is known to be much more efficient in its use of energy than road transport. Although opinion differs as to how much more efficient, and it clearly varies with load carried, length of haul, etc., it is certainly substantial.23 Moreover, in the present state of technical knowledge the railway is the only transport system which can work by electricity.24 This is particularly important for a continent with vast hydro-electric potential. It is estimated that Africa possesses two-fifths of the world's energy capital in this form.

The increasing importance of energy considerations and the extreme economy of water transport - both coastal and inland - could signal renewed interest in it as a means of long-distance transport. The diffi- culty is that given the inherent characteristics of waterways in Africa, improvements in navigation will require massive hydraulic works. Great hydraulic works (regulating dams, river canalization, etc.) are extremely costly and are practically never justified by the motive of river navigation improvement alone. But the development of hydro-electric power and the prospects of agricultural reclamation by irrigation may provide an adequate return on these great works which, incidentally, improve the navigability of watercourses. However, as with rail, an essential prerequisite is an African policy for the long-term development of water transport so that such matters as ship/barge and hence lock sizes, navigation aids and conventions, tariffs, etc. will not be enacted individually and therefore, quite likely, differently.

LOCAL TRANSPORT For the majority of people transport is a local problem, and a growing realization among the organizations concerned with development is that it has received insuffi- cient attention in the past. The recent tragedy in the Sahelian region emphasized

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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS AUGUST 1975

the need for land access to all populated areas. Providing access only when it can be economically justified will not reduce the risk of further tragedies or allow the spread of the social benefits of economic growth. Roads are uniquely suited to providing low- cost relatively high-density access. But in the past the provision of roads has been strongly influenced by economic motives, i.e. they have been seen mainly as a means of promoting 'economic development'. This policy has had two important consequences. Firstly, since development benefits are difficult to forecast, there appears to have been a tendency to opt for major route improvements - which can usually be credited with user and maintenance savings - rather than new road constructions. Thus, as the statistics on road growth showed earlier, increasing the density of communications has tended to be sacrificed in favour of increasing the quality of the existing system. Secondly, even when new 'feeder', 'penetration' or 'development' roads have been provided, the standard of construction has been such as to provide low user-costs.25 Hence many development routes have de- manded relatively high (expensive) engineering skills, at least for their design and construction.

It is not surprising that the provision of access for purely social reasons has up till now been regarded as prohibitively expensive: yet the need for very low-cost roads purely to provide access is clearly over- whelming, and strangely enough their provision makes good economic sense. Research has shown that in promoting development, of first importance is the existence of a 'route', its quality is a secondary considera- tion (i.e. the likely development effect of a new route, where none previously existed, is much greater than that due to the improvement of existing facilities). It has also shown that, when they are not part of a carefully co- ordinated programme of investment, our ability to predict the economic and social consequences of building new, particularly 'development', roads remains primitive. Because this type of road is a speculative undertaking it is doubtful if they need be built to the standards used in the past. It would be more prudent to keep initial route standards low until there had been some discernible reaction to their provision : then to improve them as needed.

Such a policy is no more than the 'stage construction' long practised by many

600

developing countries. What could be considered new is the suggestion of drastically lowering the standard and thereby the cost of the initial stage. Furthermore, in areas where economic activities are likely to be marginal for some time to come, surely there is a case for regarding some road needs as purely social investments in the manner of health clinics or schools, etc.

LABOUR VERSUS CAPITAL INTENSIVE CONSTRUCTION

A move towards low-standard high-density road networks might also favour the greater use of labour-intensive methods of construction. With the enormous, and growing, problem of unemployment in all developing countries both the International Labour Office and the World Bank have shown a renewed interest in the relative merits of labour and capital intensive methods of construction. The arguments for and against labour-intensive methods have raged at least since the 'new deal' days of Roosevelt. For developing countries they have never been supported by very much evidence of actual field performance. However, results from recent studies are not encouraging, they 'indicate that labour-intensive construction techniques traditionally practised in many developing countries are not economically competitive with equipment-intensive technology'.26 They also noted considerable scope for improvement to the methods of managing large labour forces, labour- intensive construction tools and technologies, and to the diet and medical condition of the work force.

LOCAL VEHICLES A greater emphasis on local roads ought logically to be accompanied by a reassess- ment of local vehicle needs. Transport demands are very varied, but most are for the movement of small consignments of goods and people over relatively short distances. Curiously, the means for meeting these varied demands have never in Africa exhibited the same degree of flexibility as in Asia. For example, the bullock cart has been a major component of rural transport in India, but due to the combined influence of tsetse fly and a traditional absence of wheel- wrighting skills, animal-drawn vehicles have never prospered in Africa. Perhaps now they could! Similarly, the various adaptations of the bicycle and motorcycle, for load and passenger carrying, that abound in the East are virtually unknown in Africa.




Stimulating transfers of (transport) technology is one of the prime functions of the Intermediate Technology Development Group. A second function is to try and identify gaps in technology and fill them. For example, in many African countries, people perform heroic load-balancing feats on the ubiquitous bicycle, but there appears never to have been any serious attempt until now to actually design it for goods carriage. Stuart Wilson of the Oxford University Engineering Laboratory, and an I TD G member, is pioneering prototype vehicles in this field. He has also drawn attention to the load-carrying potential of the original 'Chinese-Wheelbarrow', which suitably adapted could have several off-the-road uses.

There are likely to be many vehicle optima in the transport demand spectrum. The task for future research is to define them and in doing so to remember that more complex does not necessarily mean better : maybe just more expensive . The future of surface transport in Africa is no different in principle from that of any other part of the world. It is simply a question of a better matching of transport demand and supply.

REFERENCES i. Mostly agricultural and raw material exports; also 'essential' imports such as fertilizers, cement, iron and

steel, machinery, etc. 2. L. Gelineau, 'Problems of Transport Planning in Africa', Fourth Inter-regional Seminar on Develop- ment Planning, Accra, Ghana: 4th- 13th December, 1968 (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa).

3. Op. cit. 4. The Transgabon line is an example of another

impediment to the integration of railways in Africa: the varying gauges. Despite the OAU's wish that all railways south of the Sahara should use the 'English metric' gauge of 1.067 m the Transgabon line is being laid to 1.435 m gauge. This rules out any future connection with the neighbouring networks in the Congo and Cameroun. Similarly, East African Railways (i.e. the systems in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) run on metre-gauge lines, but the new Tanzam had to be laid to 1.067 m gauge so that it could be linked up with the Zambian system.

5. World Bank Operations: Sectoral Programs and Policies, London, John Hopkins University Press, 1972.

I 6. W. Owen , Strategy for Mobility , Washington, DC, The Brookings Institution, 1964. 7. The skeletal nature of most railway networks, the high cost of extending them and the poor ' financial ' performance of rail may well have influenced the undoubted bias towards the investment of public funds in highways in recent years. For example, of World Bank loans and IDA credits to Africa up to 1972, 44 per cent were for highways and 30 per cent for railwavs. 8. Road Needs in the Developing Countries of Africa , International Road Federation Conference, Munich, 1974. (International Road Federation.) 9. Excluding South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia. African Transport Development Study , Part 1, E/CN14/TRANS/28 (1971) figures), and International Road Federation, op. cit. 10. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Co-operation for Economic Development of Eastern Africa , Report of the Eastern Africa Team , Part Seven: Co-operation in Transport and Com- munications , ST/ECA/140/Part VII, New York, 1971 (United Nations). li. W. Owen, od. cit. 12. D. Bejakovic, 'The Share of Transport and Com- munications in Total Investment', J. Transp. Econ. Policy , IQ70, A (4), 1Ч7-ЛЧ.

13. G. W. Wilson et. al., The Impact of Highway Invest- ment on Development, Washington, DC, 1965 (The Brookings Institution), and A. M. O'Connor, Rail- ways and Development in Uganda: A Study in Economic Geography, Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1965. 14. G. W. Wilson, op. cit.

15. P. Moussa, 'The Third World in Fragments', Association News, No. 28, Brussels, 1974 (E. Wirsing - С. С. E.) pp. io-is. 16. Gelineau, od. cit. 17. New Civil Engineer , 27th Feb. 1975. 18. E. F. Schumacher, 'A Question of Size,' Small is

Beautiful, London, Blond & Briggs, 1973. 19. It is not just a question of harmonizing customs regulations, goods tariffs and vehicle licensing; more important, difficult and time-consuming is the establishment of comolementarv not comDeting markets. 20. Uka Ezenwinyinya, 'Merits of Integration', Africa (41), January 1975, pp. 23-4. 21. Op. cit. 22. Ninety-eight per cent or more. Günter Eich, 'Current Situation and Problems of the Energy Sector in the ACP Countries', Association News , No. 29, Brussels, 1975 (E. Wirsing - С. С. E.). 23. For example, Daniel Vincent ('The E.D.F. on the Track', Association News, No. 28, Brussels, 1974 (E. Wirsing - С. С. E.) pp. 43-6) states that rail 'uses only a fifth of the energy to carry the same tonnage as the road haulier'.

24. Zaire already has 850 km of electrified line. 25. H. S. Thriscutt ('Communications in Africa', Afr. Target, 1972 5 (2), 24-6) suggests much less worthy motives : 'Administrators and politicians would rather have a high quality and sophisticated facility to

display than a low grade one, which may be perfectly adequate for the job it has to do; and the designer knows that an expensive facility which is under- utilized is less likely to develop failures than a cheaper one working to capacity, and he therefore chooses the former in order to reduce the risk of blame being attached to him.' 26. International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop- ment, International Development Association, 'Study of the Substitution of Labour and Equipment in Civil Construction: Phase II, Final Report', Staff Working Paper No. 172, January 1974 (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development).

DISCUSSION Miss Barbara Harrison: Is air transport too expensive for Africa ? In South-West Asia I was amazed to find so much air transport.

The Lecturer: In technical terms the big problem with air transport is simply that it is so expensive that you can't really justify it unless you are dealing with very high-value commodities. In the primary stages of development where you are moving low value commodities you have to match these with a low-cost transport system. Air transport in East Africa

has been of enormous benefit, but in terms of the tonnage of goods and numbers of people moved it is relatively insignificant.

Professor R. J. Harrison Church (London School of Economics): Dr. Howe suggested it was a pity that in the past feeder roads were not built to the railways, but this was done in Sierra Leone and, to a lesser extent, in Ghana and Nigeria. It led to very disjointed road systems, ones that not only did not join up but did not necessarily link even

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with the capital itself. So, when eventually a road system had to be built up, one had to start with virtually another road system.

The Lecturer: I think it is probably fair comment to say that even now, let alone in the past, the overall integration of transport services has been an aspect which we have not done very well. You say that feeder roads were built to the railways of West Africa, but the railways were in many ways operating in a peculiar form. This meant that very often plans conceived in terms of roads feeding railways became out of date. I don't think any govern- ment has successfully coped with the problem of how to maintain a viable rail system, given present operating conditions, while at the same time encouraging road transport. What has tended to happen is that the building of the road transport networks has undermined rail.

Mr. A. C. Dick: I should like to con- gratulate Dr. Howe on a very interesting talk, especially his advocacy of the development of intermediate technology road transport, namely adaptions of the bike. I think that this is a very important area, especially when one sees what can be done in Asia, Pakistan and India. I feel it is not quite a total answer, because if one is looking for economic development one needs to encourage the agricultural commodity, which relies very heavily on importation of fertilizers and importation of agricultural products. Also you have to start encouraging development and expansion of industry, which relies upon raw materials and exporting heavy products. I think that Dr. Howe said that these kinds of commodities best operate on a railway system, but my experience is that it is difficult to get a railway system established in the early stages because of the low flow rate of commodities, and this is where the flexibility of the lorry on a road really comes into its own. Once you have got your lorry on a road established, it is difficult to supply the railway. I don't know whether Dr. Howe has any thoughts about how to get out of this impasse ?

The Lecturer: Always with transport there is the classic chicken or egg question - which comes first ? Really the transport planner is saying to the development planner, 'Tell me what it is you want to transport and I will tell you how much it will cost ; that is, what kind of system you should have, whether it be railway or road', and the development planner is saying to the transport planner, 'You tell me what kind of system you are going to provide and I will tell you what we can afford to produce'. So far as I know there is only one person who has put up a sensible proposal for resolving this, Louis Gelineau in a report to the Economic Commis- sion for Africa. He says that what we really need is a hypothesis of what the transport system should be. If we had a hypothetical network of

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railways, or a hypothetical network of roads, then we could make fairly accurate estimates of what sort of charges would result. From that the development planner could work out what sort of industrial commodities could be produced and therefore the transport planner could decide how he could justify his investments. The problem at the moment is that almost invariably international road and rail routes are looked at with a very imperfect knowledge of the changes they are likely to provoke. Almost invariably one finishes up with the answer that they are uneconomic simply because they are built in anticipation of events that are to take place. You can't plan sensibly in this way. The building of major international communications can only sensibly take place within an overall regional planning framework.

Mr. Dick: That means an international critical body to govern and control the direction of that network and its development.

The Lecturer: I don't think I would go so far as that. At the moment we have (and I say this in no sense as a criticism) a very strong lobby for an international road system. We have nothing comparable in terms of rail systems or water systems. So the debate on transport, which is always a controversial one, is very heavily loaded on one side, and I think the missing element here is an overall African policy in terms of rail and water transport, because the sort of changes that we have been talking about here are enormous. They are comparable with the Snowy Mountain Scheme, the Tennessee Valley Scheme and the European Transport Network Schemes and can only be effected with a similar kind of organization.

Mr. Martin Gould (Paterson Simons (Africa) Ltd.) : Dr. Howe spoke of electrification, and this is obviously very important. Is there any possibility there of the long-life battery being developed in its larger application ? Secondly, bearing in mind that the road/rail communication network is still there, is it not possible, if we are starting from scratch, to design a vehicle vastly larger, in size ? Would one not really think of something like a tractor with enormous wheels ?

The Lecturer: Africa has always been a considerable innovator as far as the development of its railway network is concerned. Most of the early experience in welded rail was obtained in Africa. It already has something like 900 kilo- metres of electrified line in Zaire. I don't think that is coincidental, because Zaire has something like 60 per cent of the hydro-electric potential of Africa. The marvellous thing about hydro-electric power is that it is non-polluting and never-ending, and this is an aspect which must be taken into account. In the centrally populated and most badly developed regions of Africa there is enormous hydro-electric poten-



AUGUST 197$ SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA

tial. For this reason I don't see much prospect for battery technology.

It is interesting that some of the very first trials for massive land tractor vehicles took place in Nigeria in 1922, soon after the success of the tank in the First World War. A number of governments- Australia, South Africa, Canada - subscribed to these experiments. They never seriously developed and I don't honestly see much prospect. Presumably you are thinking of something operating off a road, in which case it will probably be on the hover principle. We already know that the cost penalty of these makes them generally unworkable. As far as road applications of land tractors are concerned we already have major problems in Africa in con- taining the axle loads of existing vehicles !

Mr. J. A. C. King, ceng, fiee: I have been in West Africa for eight years and in the Central African area for about six years and to various other parts of the world. I had the impression that the speaker has not fully taken account of some of the recent transport develop- ments. For instance, it is now possible to drive on a blacktop road from Cape Town to the northern borders of Uganda, and when a short gap is closed between Nairobi and a little beyond the Ethiopian border, I believe that road system will stretch as far as Asmara and possibly further. Similarly there is a very long rail network. One could travel by rail from Cape Town to Lobito even now. A week or so ago I saw a news paragraph to the effect that the Tanzam Railway had now been opened as far as Mpika, which leaves a gap of about 200 miles to be constructed before it links up with the railways of the South. As soon as that gap is closed it will be possible to travel by rail from Cape Town to the northern area of Uganda. I think there will be a gauge change involved somewhere in the area of Mombasa.

I was interested to hear the speaker say that hovercraft were in use in about thirteen countries. I have myself proposed a hovercraft as the solution to the transport problem in what is now the Western Province of Zambia (formerly Barotse).

As to bicycle transport, the African is an addict to balancing loads on his head. Considering the terrain, I don't think you are going to improve on the man who can invert a table on his head as a carrier for two goats while he rides a bicycle !

Is air travel really so expensive ? A week ago a veterinary surgeon somewhere in the Shrop- shire area said that he visited his farms by light plane because it was quicker and no more expensive than running a car. And surely most of the trouble with the development of railways has been their comparatively slow speed ?

The Lecturer: I think I did represent faithfully the existing rail systems, based upon a survey conducted in January of this year by

the EEC. This, so far as I am aware, is the most recent information available. I would agree with you about the extent of the bitumen road network, although the gaps between northern Kenya and Ethiopia are very serious. The terrain in the border area is extremely difficult, and the soils there are silty clays which are going to make road construction very expensive. I know there is a proposal to link Kenya and Ethiopia, but that fifty or sixty miles could be a very difficult fifty or sixty miles to fill.

About bicycle transport I will make only one comment. I would in no way disparage the dexterity of the people involved, but the simple fact is that the accident rate in most African countries is incredibly high and this surely must be one of the main reasons why. Presum- ably the tricycle would be a very much more stable vehicle and might make some contribution in this area. We won't really start to know until we take the ten prototypes of these vehicles, distribute them round Africa, and see how they work. We don't know that this will be a solution. What we do know is that somebody should be trying to do something.

So far as air travel is concerned I think probably you answered that yourself when you said that your friend was a vet. He probably gets about £7,000 a year, which is a lot more than the average rural farmer. It is still to all intents not a viable means of transport except when you are carrying high- value perishable commodities.

F. Andrew Sharman: The most valuable part of the talk to me was the speaker's scepticism about conventional economic evaluation for surface transportation methods. Like many people here I am concerned with giving advice on transportation systems in Africa, and find myself often at a loss to translate the conventional wisdom even of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory into true benefit for a developing African country. What I am hoping for is much more enlightenment from the Road Research Laboratory, such as we have heard to-day, on the establishment of an economic hierarchy of economic travel, starting with bicycle tracks and bicycles and going on to feeder road systems. But I think we should con- centrate for the moment on the justification for building more railways and more railway vehicles. At the moment I am particularly concerned with Egypt, where they have got the investment opportunity but where it is extra- ordinarily difficult to obtain real evidence and data to substantiate investment in rail as against road.

The Chairman: Dr. Howe, in answering that, I wonder if you could also consider any hindrances there may be from a national and political point of view to the development of transport systems linking up with bigger neighbouring countries ?

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The Lecturer: I think the Transport and Road Research Laboratory deals very much in the art of the possible. We, as much as anybody, are only too well aware of the deficiencies of the information with which we must work, and I would be the first to agree that this is probably the biggest single barrier to sensible decisions.

Transport decisions probably more than any other are very much a part of the political arena, and when I am lecturing overseas to students they frequently say, 'Why do you bother to do all these calculations and collect all this information when you know that roads are built for political purposes ?' My answer is simply that ťYou are never going to get these decisions out of the political arena until you present your case in a sensible fashion. I will try and tell them, to the best of my ability, what they should do. Whether they ignore that advice or not is up to them, but it does not modify the way in which I set about doing the job'.

The last point Mr. Sharman made was connected with rail in Egypt. Here I think the recent report of the World Bank is interesting, because they seem to be very much more willing to acknowledge the political realities within which such systems must operate. They are saying quite bluntly that to continue operating most of the rail systems as they are now operated is foolishness. It is quite clear that major changes must be made in the way in which railways are operated, and particularly the whole financing of them. It is difficult for us to preach about it because we have our own problems right on our doorstep.

Deborah Ainger (Intermediate Tech- nology Development Group): The speaker

mentioned rivers as being low cost surfaces, and spoke about low cost vehicles for road surfaces. Could he possibly give us a word on low cost vehicles for rivers and low cost surfaces for road vehicles ?

The Lecturer: This phrase 'low cosť dogs my life! I remember somebody saying to me that the low cost road is a road that you cannot afford but it just happens to be cheaper than another road you cannot afford. Possibly that sums it up. Low-cost vehicles for rivers is something I know nothing about. I know that we have a panel which is at present investigating ferro-concrete boats for the Sudan for the interesting reason that they don't have any wood in that particular area. Low-cost surfaces for roads are again a very complex problem because one is really trading off a whole load of different things. You are diminishing the cost and the sums invested in one area and increasing them in another. There cannot be a simple answer to this question. In fact, because of its complexity the Overseas Unit of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory has just finished mounting a massive investigation of this problem in East Africa. It is the culmination of some three years' field work to determine the relationships that will enable us to select just which type of construction standard, and various other technical parameters, that will givč means of movement at the lowest cost.

There being no further questions , the Chairman proposed a vote of thanks to the Lecturer and the meeting closed with acclamation of them both.

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SURFACE TRANSPORT IN AFRICA—THE FUTURE

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