The economics of the provision of rural transport services in developing countries

摘要

Rural accessibility planning in developing countries over the last few decades hasprimarily focused on increasing rural communities access to rural roads. It has beenconsidered that road building improves access to health, education, markets andemployment opportunities, and hence promotes economic development. It is arguedin this thesis that accessibility, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, has not improvedto the desired extent because the problem of mobility, in terms of access to vehicleservices, has not been addressed. The provision of rural roads and transport serviceshave been taken as synonymous with each other, but in reality this has not proved tobe the case. This thesis attempts to redress that balance by seeking to change themindset of policy makers to think about mobility and increase the emphasis placed onthe promotion of transport services, both motorised and non-motorised.The findings relate to surveys undertaken in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Zimbabweand Pakistan where data were collected on vehicle operating costs (VOC's) andperformance for a wide range of commonly used rural vehicles. These includedhuman porterage and non-motorised vehicles such as bicycles and animal transport,as well as motorised vehicles such as conventional trucks and pickups, agriculturaltractors and simple engine-powered vehicles. Analysis of the data demonstratedlarge differences in the VOC's and transport charges for rural transport servicesbetween the generally efficient systems in the Asian countries and the inefficient onesin the African countries studied.These findings form the foundation for the development of the Rural TransportPlanner (RTP) and the framework which identifies the relationships betweentransport charges, VOC's, and factors relating to the vehicles operating environment.The RTP provides the first known attempt at producing a model for rural vehicleselection and for recommending interventions to improve the operating environmentfor rural transport services.