IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bjc/journl/v10y2023i9p335-342.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contestability between Road and Rail Transport for Dry Cargo in Malawi: Cost and Service Reliability Issues. The Never Ending Race

Author

Listed:
  • Vincent Collins Matemba

    (Institute of Distance Education, University of Zambia)

  • Kasonde Mundende

    (Institute of Distance Education, University of Zambia)

  • Inonge Milupi

    (Institute of Distance Education, University of Zambia)

Abstract

For several years, a modal shift from road to rail transport has been promoted by policymakers and industry experts as it is believed that this move would provide a basis for achieving lower transportation costs. Malawi’s main goal is to reduce transportation costs and ensure that transport does not constrain its economy and the achievement of this strategic objective would be by facilitating a modal shift from road to rail transport. While all these efforts are being made, there is still not much to trigger the modal shift. This study therefore, focused on understanding the freight modal split between road and rail and went further to establish the reasons why shippers choose a particular mode of transport for their shipments. A descriptive research design within quantitative methodology was employed. Using a simple random sampling technique, 84 participants were recruited for this study. The finding of the study revealed that 87 percent of shippers use road transport because it provides a shorter shipment delivery window, reliable transport service, and availability. It is therefore recommended that the government should invest to revitalize rail transportation to make it more efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincent Collins Matemba & Kasonde Mundende & Inonge Milupi, 2023. "Contestability between Road and Rail Transport for Dry Cargo in Malawi: Cost and Service Reliability Issues. The Never Ending Race," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 10(9), pages 335-342, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bjc:journl:v:10:y:2023:i:9:p:335-342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rsisinternational.org/journals/ijrsi/digital-library/volume-10-issue-9/335-342.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijrsi/articles/contestability-between-road-and-rail-transport-for-dry-cargo-in-malawi-cost-and-service-reliability-issues-the-never-ending-race/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wouter Zant, 2018. "Trains, Trade, and Transaction Costs: How Does Domestic Trade by Rail Affect Market Prices of Malawi Agricultural Commodities?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(2), pages 334-356.
    2. Volpe, Richard & Leibtag, Ephraim S. & Roeger, Edward, 2013. "How Transport Costs Affect Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Prices," Economic Research Report 161355, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Yves Crozet, 2017. "Rail freight development in Europe: how to deal with a doubly-imperfect competition?," Post-Print halshs-02122842, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vincent Collins Matemba & Kasonde Mundende & Inonge Milupi, 2023. "Correlates of Transport Mode Choice: Dry Commodity Movement. A Case of Malawi," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 10(11), pages 45-57, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ge, Houtian & Baker, Quinton J. & Gomez, Miguel I. & Jaromczyk, Jerzy & Yi, Jing, 2022. "Assessing the carbon footprint of fresh produce assembly and distribution in the U.S," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322537, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Aleksandra Kuzior & Marek Staszek, 2021. "Energy Management in the Railway Industry: A Case Study of Rail Freight Carrier in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-21, October.
    3. Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2018. "Spatial dispersion of retail margins: evidence from Turkish agricultural prices," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(4), pages 455-462, July.
    4. Remi Jedwab & Adam Storeygard, 2019. "Economic and Political Factors in Infrastructure Investment: Evidence from Railroads and Roads in Africa 1960–2015," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 156-208, May.
    5. Marzena Kramarz & Edyta Przybylska, 2021. "Maturity of Polish Rail Intermodal Transport as Compared to Selected EU Countries: A Comparative Analysis," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4B), pages 202-217.
    6. Wouter Zant, 2022. "Measuring Trade Cost Reductions Through a New Bridge in Mozambique: Who Benefits From Transport Infrastructure?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 31(4), pages 384-408.
    7. Masone, Adriano & Marzano, Vittorio & Simonelli, Fulvio & Sterle, Claudio, 2024. "Exact and heuristic approaches for the Modal Shift Incentive Problem," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Vincent Collins Matemba & Kasonde Mundende & Inonge Milupi, 2023. "Correlates of Transport Mode Choice: Dry Commodity Movement. A Case of Malawi," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 10(11), pages 45-57, November.
    9. Letourneau, Deborah K. & Ando, Amy W. & Jedlicka, Julie A. & Narwani, Anita & Barbier, Edward, 2015. "Simple-but-sound methods for estimating the value of changes in biodiversity for biological pest control in agriculture," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 215-225.
    10. Ge, Houtian & Goetz, Stephan & Canning, Patrick & Perez, Agnes, 2018. "Optimal locations of fresh produce aggregation facilities in the United States with scale economies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 143-157.
    11. Joshua D. Merfeld, 2023. "Labor elasticities, market failures, and misallocation: Evidence from Indian agriculture," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(5), pages 623-637, September.
    12. Patrice Bougette & Axel Gautier & Frédéric Marty, 2021. "Which access to which assets for an effective liberalization of the railway sector?," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 22(2), pages 87-110, June.
    13. Svanidze, Miranda & Götz, Linde, 2019. "Determinants of spatial market efficiency of grain markets in Russia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Romualdas Ginevicius & Gintaras Sinkevicius, 2020. "Quantitative Assessment of the Dynamics of Rail Freight Transportation," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 22(54), pages 579-579, April.
    15. Etemadnia, Hamideh & Goetz, Stephan J. & Canning, Patrick & Tavallali, Mohammad Sadegh, 2015. "Optimal wholesale facilities location within the fruit and vegetables supply chain with bimodal transportation options: An LP-MIP heuristic approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(2), pages 648-661.
    16. Merfeld, Joshua D., 2020. "Smallholders, Market Failures, and Agricultural Production: Evidence from India," IZA Discussion Papers 13682, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Giuseppe Loprencipe & Laura Moretti & Tiziana Pestillo & Ricardo Ferraro, 2018. "Railway Freight Transport and Logistics: Methods for Relief, Algorithms for Verification and Proposals for the Adjustment of Tunnel Inner Surfaces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, September.
    18. Ngui Min Fui Tom, 2019. "Strategy to Build a Transshipment Port as a Catalyst to Achieving Critical Mass for Sabah’s Economic Growth," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 12(7), pages 141-166, July.
    19. Kuhns, Annemarie & Leibtag, Ephraim & Volpe, Richard & Roeger, Ed, 2015. "How USDA Forecasts Retail Food Price Inflation," Technical Bulletins 206500, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    20. Merfeld, Joshua, 2021. "Misallocation and Agricultural Production: Evidence from India," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315914, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bjc:journl:v:10:y:2023:i:9:p:335-342. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dr. Renu Malsaria (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://rsisinternational.org/journals/ijrsi/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.