Modeling the Qualitative Relationship among Risks Associated with Occupational and Workplace Hazards in Seaport Environments: the Case of Apapa Port, Nigeria

The aim of the research is to establish the quantitative relationship and impacts of risks associated with various categories of occupational and workplace hazards in the Nigerian seaports. It was carried out by obtaining time series statistical data of 7 years from hazard identification and risk assessment report of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Apapa, western port headquarters. The variables considered are the associated risks of various types of occupational and workplace hazards to which seaport workers were exposed from 2009-2014. The overall level of associated risks of occupational and workplace hazards represent the cumulative of various hazards and were treated as the dependent variable ‘Y’. The exposures to the risks of mechanical hazards, ergonomic hazards, physical hazards, noise/environmental hazards were symbolized as X1, X2, X3, and X4 respectively and treated as independent variables. The method of multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the time series data. T-test was used to test the hypotheses. It was found that risks associated to mechanical hazard, ergonomic hazards, noise/vibration hazard, physical hazards, all have significant impact on the overall level of risk of exposure to occupational and workplace hazards in Nigerian seaport environment. It was recommended that proactive investment in safety inspective and management system is needed to limit the level of exposure of seaport staff to occupational hazards

Determinants of airline choice-making : the Nigerian perspective

This study is on choice decision-making of the Nigerian domestic air transport industry. It is aimed at determining the factors that influences air travellers’ choice of airlines to fly within Nigeria. In doing this, data was collected from air travellers using questionnaires following Likert scale of ranking. This enabled us to obtain the socio-economic characteristics and the airline attributes that helped influenced the air travellers in making their choice of airlines at the selected airports. The data collected were analysed using correlation matrix to check for multi-collinearity problems among the socioeconomic characteristics of air travellers and airline attributes. It was discovered that there exist no multi-collinearity problem. Furthermore, a stepwise regression analysis was carried out to determine the factors/attributes that were significantly influencing air travellers in airline choice decision making. To further verify the result of the regression analysis, a discrete choice-modelling analysis was done using NLOGIT. The both results showed that sex, age, marital status, income, comfort, on-board services, frequency, crew behaviour, fare and power of monopoly were significant variables and therefore influence the choice of airline by air travellers. Recommendations amongst others include airlines should use target marketing to attract more patronage from the different age groups, improve comfort and on-board services, increase frequency on major routes, charge competitive fares and apply the power of monopoly by either serving undeveloped routes or make their products distinct from others in the market and airlines should avail their air travellers more opportunities of purchasing tickets before getting to the airport

Spatial and temporal dimensions of container traffic in Nigerian seaports

Generally speaking, cargo demand traffic forecasts are needed tools to rationalize the investment decisions in ports. However, little studies have been carried out in determining the magnitude of container cargo traffic at Nigerian ports, this creates a lacuna that needs to be filled up. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the spatial and temporal dimensions of container traffic in Nigerian seaports from 1990 to 2017. The study uses a survey design and employed descriptive and multivariate statistics to analyze the data. It demonstrates that Nigeria imports lots of commodities in containers than it exports in containers because most of the country’s exports are crude oil and non-containerized goods. Thus, the reason for traffic congestion at the ports and the high cost paid by Nigerian shippers for imported containerized cargo. The study further showed that both imported and exported container traffic had a positive trend in the time series. From the findings, we have shown the need for understanding the magnitude of container traffic at the ports as it helps Ports Authorities in operational decisions regarding port capacity utilization