Evaluation of Performances of Intermodal Import-Export Freight Transport System in Ethiopia

Tadesse Kenea Amentae,Girma Gebresenbet

doi:10.4236/jssm.2015.81007

Tadesse Kenea Amentae, Girma Gebresenbet

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/jssm.2015.81007

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Abstract

Freight transport system that minimizes costs, increase conveniences, and environmentally safe has become the agenda worldwide since long before. This study was made with the main objective of assessing intermodal termed as “multimodal” freight transport service in Ethiopia. Data was collected by using structured questionnaire from randomly selected customers and multimodal freight transport section employees of Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise. The study was made in two stages using customers: first, they were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with the multimodal freight transport system; second, to evaluate their comparative satisfaction with the segmented/“uni-modal” freight transport system against five major freight transport performance indicators. Customers were also asked to identify and rank top ten problems of freight transport logistics in Ethiopia. Data were analyzed using SPSS and excel sheets with descriptive statistics and the results were depicted using charts and tables. The study indicated that majority of customers were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with many of the performance indicators. The employees evaluated their organization as well performing relatively on more performance indicators. Both customers and employees evaluated the documentation performances as satisfying but cost and convenience as dissatisfying performances. Customers identified repetitive custom checking and waste of time in custom inspections process as the most severe problem in freight transport logistics in Ethiopia. The implementation of intermodal freight transport system to bring better change in import-export freight transport logistics of Ethiopia was in bitter challenge for customers due to a number of problems, except documentation performance that showed betterment.

Highlights

The second phase was conducted between June-September/2014 on the comparative analysis between “multi-modal” versus “uni-modal” freight transport service
102 customers who have used both “multi-modal” and “uni-modal” freight transport service from Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise (ESLSE) have responded to the survey
Big majority of respondent customers were dissatisfied with the costs under “multi-modal” freight transport system

Summary

Introduction

Ethiopia being one of the developing countries needs to be integrated with global economy and that can only be possible through efficient and effective flows of goods to and from the country in international trade. To this end, the country needs to adopt or develop an efficient intermodal transport system for freight transport. The directive set by the government of Ethiopia [1] indicated that “multimodal” transport system in Ethiopia targets for seamless, low cost, and maximum customer convenient transporting of imported goods from Djibouti to dry ports in Ethiopia and the reverse flow in case of exported goods. This study was made to assess the “multimodal” freight transport performance of Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise (ESLSE) and to identify major constraints in Ethiopian import-export freight transport logistics that need due attention from stakeholders

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Conclusion