Rail transport generates N5.79bn from 2019 – NBS

…as NRC begins Sunday service on Lagos-Ibadan railway

Rail transportation in Nigeria generated N5.79 billion between 2019 and Quarter One of 2021 (Q1, 2021), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.

It said this in the “Rail Transportation Data for Q1 2019 – Q1 2021” obtained from its website on Thursday in Abuja, adding that the revenue was generated from passengers, goods/cargo and other incomes.

Giving a breakdown, it said N918.62 million was generated as revenue in the first quarter of 2021 (Q1, 2021) as against N481.57 million generated in Q4, 2020.

Also, revenue generated from passengers in Q1 2021 was put at N892.46, while N398.99 was generated from passengers in Q4 2020, the report said.

It added that revenue generated from goods/cargo in Q1 2021 was put at N26.19 as against N82.57 in Q4 2020.

In 2019, N2.412 billion was generated from passengers, while in 2020, N1.745 billion was generated and in Q1, 2021, N892.46 million was derived.

For goods/cargo, in 2019, N362.88 million was generated; in 2020, the sector derived N281.35 million and in Q1 2021, N26.19 million had been generated.

However, for other receipts, N64.57 million was derived in 2019, N5.18 million in 2020 and N8.062 million in Q1, 2021.

The bureau said that rail transportation data for Q1 2021 reflected that 424,460 passengers travelled via the rail system in Q1 2021 as against 647,055 passengers recorded in Q1 2020 and 134,817 in Q4 2020.

It said that this represented a -34.40 per cent decline year-on-year (YoY) and +214.84 per cent growth quarter-on quarter (QoQ) respectively.

“Similarly, a total of 10,511 tons of volume of goods/cargo travelled via the rail system in Q1 2021 as against 18,484 that used the system in Q1 2020 and 35,736 in Q4 2020 representing -43.13 per cent decline YoY and -70.59 per cent decline QoQ respectively.”

The report said that data for the summation was provided by the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), verified and validated by the NBS.

In the meantime, the Managing Director, Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr Fidet Okhiria says the corporation will soon include Sunday in the Lagos/Ibadan standard gauge rail service to satisfy customers’ needs.

Okhiria made the disclosure during  a two-day retreat for senior management of the corporation held in Lagos on Thursday.

“We are working to include Sunday service in our operations. In the next two weeks, Sunday service will commence but we need to service the rolling stock fully before programming the train for seven days operation.

“We want Nigerians to really enjoy the train service. If not for the servicing,  the Sunday service would have commenced this Sunday June 27.

“We are also using few days to programme staff for night operations because we want people to benefit from the train services.

“The objective of the management staff meeting is to review and inform them on the way forward.

“Before now, we have given ourselves some goals to achieve like how many locomotives, how many speed limit we should remove and how many trains we should have running,” Okhiria said.

Okhiria said there were five speed restrictions on Abuja/ Kaduna Standard gauge railway routes, adding that two speed restrictions had been removed on that axis due to some ballast formation.

He said they had to put speed restrictions on Apapa track due to frequent derailing because of lack of ballast.

He said that the NRC had directed the district managers and directors to collaborate with the Nigeria Police and Civil Defense to improve the response time of various security challenges along railway corridors.