By Demilade Aderibigbe
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) had a sluggish, bearish run in Q1, 2023, compared to the same period 2022.
The agency posted that the nation’s oldest corporation and operator of Nigeria’s three national rail networks the Abuja-Kaduna Standard Gauge (the flagship), the Itakpe-Warri Standard Gauge and Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge, generated N768.44 million in revenue from passenger traffic in Q1 2023, which was a 63.02% drop, compared to the N2.08 billion received in Q1, 2022.
This was contained in the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Rail Transportation Data for Q1 2023 released on Wednesday, June 14, 2023.
The figure confirmed that the Corporation is still struggling to get free from the two terrorists’ attacks in 2022 and January 9, 2023, developments which caused panic among the travelling public who have been opting to travel by rail.
According to the NBS, the number of rail transport passengers in Q1 2023 dropped to 441,725, which was lower than the 953,099 reported in the corresponding quarter of 2022, a negative growth of -53.65%.
What it lost in passenger traffic, the NRC however gained in cargo movement with a surge in cargo freight in the same quarter. It raked in N181.27 million from goods/cargoes, representing a positive growth of 99.28% from N90.96 million received in Q1, 2022. The NBS revealed that 59,966 tons of goods were transported in Q1 2023, compared to 39,379 tons reported in Q1 2022.
The NBS stated that other receipts amounted to N34.17 million, showing a decline of 41.02 per cent in Q1 2023, from the N57.92 million collected in Q1 2022.
Meanwhile, in its Transport Fare Watch for April 2023, the NBS showed that the average fare paid by commuting Nigerians year-on-year, rose by 13.58% in April 2023, from N570.64 in April 2022.
The Fare Watch for April, covers bus journeys within the city per drop, intercity bus journey (state routes), charge per person, air fare charge for specified routes per single journey, journey by motorcycle (okada) per drop, and waterway passenger transport.
The NBS report stated that the average fare paid by commuters for bus journeys within the city per drop decreased by 0.01% in April 2023 when N648.12 was recorded, from N648.16 in March 2023. On a year-on-year basis, the average fare paid rose by 13.58% from N570.64 in April 2022.
In another category, the average fare paid by commuters for bus journey intercity per drop was N3,994.51 in April 2023, indicating an increase of 0.05% on a month-on-month basis compared to the N3,992.36 recorded in March 2023. On a year-on-year basis, this rose by 12.30% from N3,557.15 in April 2022. In air travel, the average fare paid by air passengers for specified routes single journey increased by 0.26% on a month-on-month basis from N74,755.41 in March 2023 to N74,947.30 in April 2023. On a year-on-year basis, the fare rose by 35.04% from N55,501.49 in April 2022.
