Performance Indicators for Rail Transport System in Nigeria.

Abstract

Rail transport has and continues to play a key role in the movement of goods and passengers in many countries around the world including Nigeria. However, while rail transport continues to enjoy relative importance in terms of investment, growth and contribution to the national economy in several countries, it has suffered neglect and relegation in Nigeria, resulting in a decline in its modal share contribution. Particularly, in the last decades following independence, not much has been achieved in terms of structural transformation of the Nigerian Railways. However there are new developments and investment on rail and some measures are being put in place to revive the Nigerian rail transport system. Old and unused railways are being modernised, rehabilitated, commissioned and brought into service. Therefore, it is vitally important to understand and analyse the performance criteria that can be applied in measuring and managing the Nigerian rail sub-sector. Currently this measurement criteria has not being established. The focus of this paper is on identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Nigerian rail sub-sector. The KPIs that have been identified in this paper following the performance measurement framework, can be used to measure the performance of the rail subsector and eventually guide the further development of rail transport in Nigeria, in the sense that the KPIs will assist in identifying key areas for improvement in the sector and also serve as a guide for transport policy makers in making decisions. The KPIs presented in this paper have been categorised into: Safety; Security; Environmental pollution; Internal Business perspective; Financial perspective; Intermodal perspective; Innovation and Learning perspective and Customer Satisfaction.