Opreational Challenges Facing The Use of Bus Rapid Transit System In Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

According to Solanke[33], the global urban centers rely on effective transportation for functional efficiency, making transportation an essential component of city development and operation. Transportation in Lagos State, Nigeria is a significant test that throughout the years had called for serious consideration and each endeavor at arrangement appears to intensify it.The study seek to identify the operational use of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as it’s becoming increasingly popular as a flexible and cost-effective rapid transit mode. The aim of the research work is to examine the operational challenges of BRT and improvement for sustainable transport development in Lagos State. Lagos State is purposively chosen as the study centre as it is the only State with BRT operations and services in the Sub-Sahara Africa. Data were collected among 539 BRT commuters on simple random basis at the terminals using the off-peak hours of the day. Information were also collected from BRT officials to know the numbers of passengers commuted on daily basis; average number of commuters that use the BRT on weekly basis; mode of operation and hours of operation. The result of the regression model shows that all the major operational challenges of BRT accounted for 4.90% (R2 = 0.049) of the challenges variability in the dependent variable (Commuter Satisfaction). The remaining 95.1% variance in commuters’ satisfaction is attributed to benefits in the regression model. The Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the operational challenges of BRT to commuters in the study area are negligible. Therefore, factors such as overcrowding, delayed travel time, low frequency of buses and unsatisfied ticketing system are not significant challenges of BRT to commuters in Lagos State as F-tab of 2.21 is higher than F-cal of 1.748. The study concluded that Lagos State with its mega city status deserves integrated transport system which is inherent in BRT that meets the challenges of intra city trips. It is therefore recommended that there is need to improve on the e-ticketing system and provision of monitoring cameras and security detective devises inside BRT and bus stops to ensure safety. Application of commuting network software in the services of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) should be given attention.