BY JONAH NWOKPOKU

The Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC, has said that its haulage system launched recently has not started having significant impact on road congestion because of its limitations on market share and technical capacity.
Director of Operations, NRC, Mr. Niyi Alli, stated this in a chat with Vanguard on the state of the corporation’s recently launched container traffic.

It will be recalled that the Nigeria Railway Corporation introduced the container traffic in partnership with APMT Inland Container Nigeria Limited in August, 2013. It also added 20 oil tank wagons to its fleet, all in an attempt to improve efficiency in the haulage system and ease congestion at the port, besides helping to reduce the number of trucks and the clogging on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway in Lagos.

He said: “You have to think about it from a very logical perspective. At the moment, we have been able to carry less than two percent of the total volume required. This will take a gradual process where we will start to integrate, increase capacity and customer confidence and over a period of time, you will start to see an increease in the number of containers that are being carried by rail. But that will take some time.

“This will not only affect the container traffic but also other traffic like wheat and cement. It’s a gradual process and we will definitely increase our market share. But we have to understand that the trailers will not just disappear automatically from the road, it will take awhile.”