Performance Evaluation of Nigerian Ports: Pre and Post Concession Eras

This paper x-rays the performance of the Nigerian ports at two points in time; that is, from 1956-2005 as pre concession era and 2006-2012 as post concession era. It highlights the challenges that undermine the capacity of the sector from meeting up with the global best practices. The data on cargo movement were derived from the Nigerian Port Authority Annual Reports. The study relied on descriptive statistics, trend analysis, chi-square analysis and port performance indicators such as indicator of output and indicator of service in explaining the trend of port performance for the periods under review. The trend analysis employed to explain the trend of cargo movements in all the ports in Nigeria was the Quarterly Moving Averages. It was revealed that the trend of cargo throughput in Nigeria is determined by the inward cargo movement. The analysis also revealed a fluctuation in cargo movement from 1956 to 2005 while the cargo throughput continues to increase unabated from 2006 to 2012. The concession of the port must have been responsible for this upward movement in cargo trend. There was a remarkable increase in inward and outward cargo movement during the post concession era in comparison to the pre concession era.      This paper recommends that government encourages public ownership and private sector operations of the port infrastructure in Nigeria. Keyword: Port concession, infrastructure, evaluation, indicators, performanc

Traffic Management Problems in Lagos: A Focus on Alaba International Market Road, Ojo, Lagos State Nigeria

This study examines the traffic management problems resulting from traffic congestion in the study area. It also evaluates the opinion of the stakeholders in the transport sector such as the commuters, transport operators and private car owners on the traffic situations and management problems in the study area. The study depended upon the survey research technique to gather relevant data on the respondents, using the questionnaire as the research instrument. The research identified inter alia the traffic congestion causative factors as; over dependency on small occupancy vehicles, narrow road, indiscriminate parking, loading and off-loading of goods and passengers on the road, on-street trading, inability of the  traffic management agencies to evacuate crashed or breakdown vehicles on time and ineffective traffic control measure. The study recommends the expansion of the narrow road capacity to double lanes, provision of adequate parking facilities, increasing the number of the few bus terminal along the road, provision of adequate park and ride space, prohibition of on-street parking, effective traffic management techniques, pedestrians priority scheme, provision of mass transit buses, provision of more road furniture like traffic light, lane marking, frequent road assessment and maintenance in the study area. Keywords: transport, congestion, furniture, traffic, terminal, vehicles, technique, pedestrians

Similarities between disaster supply chains and commercial supply chains: a SCM process view

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate conceptual and theoretical similarities between disaster relief chains (DRCs) and commercial supply chains using the customer relationship management process model (CRM) of the seminal global supply chain forum framework (GSCF) as a lens of analysis (Croxton et al. in Int J Logist Manag 12(2):13–36, 2001). A range of empirical data from a case study of the 2006 relief and recovery response to the Cyclone Larry disaster is analysed using the CRM process model of the GSCF framework as a lens of analysis. We find that there are unexpected conceptual and theoretical similarities between DRCs in the Cyclone Larry disaster response and commercial supply chains. The study demonstrates that core commercial SCM concepts such as integration and integrative process management can also be found empirically in the domain of disaster response operations and allied management of supply chains for disaster relief and recovery (DROSCM). The study also shows that research in the DROSCM domain can develop in a range of directions unfettered by a paradigm focused on differences between DRCs and commercial supply chains. This is the first study to conceptually, theoretically, and empirically demonstrate similarities between DRCs and commercial supply chains