USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why Gov. Fashola should cancel free BRT on holidays

Why Gov. Fashola should cancel free BRT on holidays

 

KAYODE KETEFE

 

The fact that Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN, has good intention for the good, peace, progress and development of Lagos State is not in doubt. A ready example of such a good intention is afforded by the Bus Rapid Transport Scheme which aims at making express commutation less easy and less stressful for the Lagosians. That the BRT scheme is, by and large, a successful project, is also not also in doubt.

However, there are some situations when a good intention unexpectedly turns out to spawn an outcome that tends to be counter-productive to the original benign calculations. Such a circumstantial twist always occurs each time there is a public holiday and the government, with a view to felicitate with the people, make the commuting BRT buses operate free of charge. For example, during Xmas, New Year Day, Easter etc, these buses operate free of charge, portraying a well-intended , goodwill gesture from the Lagos government.

Last Monday, which was Easter Monday, witnessed another such day. What I witnessed on that day, reinforced what I had observed in the past, and it inspired me to write this piece and to make a rather unusual proposition. "Please, abolish free ride on all BRT buses on public holidays!" What did I witness? I saw a mammoth crowd, waiting at the Oshodi-Under the bridge terminus. Then a BRT bus came and a horde of passengers swarmed on it with some people jumping in from the windows while others were squeezing in through the door, in utter defiance of the etiquette to queue up like we do have on normal days.

The journalist in me took over and I paused in my own journey to take photographs. I even asked questions and got to know many of these surging young commuters were going to a carnival in Lagos Island. Why should they not embark on such journeys? After all they would have free ride to and fro their destinations.

To start with, such a policy leads to allocative inefficiency, as many people, like frolicking area boys and promenading young girls , with no important mission anywhere would just appropriate the service and expropriate the people who would have derived better utilitarian value from such service.

The Government has already done enough by permanet subsidising of the fare. For example the fare of BRT bus from Oshodi to CMS/Obalende is a meager N100 naira, a commercial bus would invariably charge 50 per cent above that. The additional gesture of making BRT transportation free on public holidays, then constitutes an unnecessary gift.

This should even be obvious, it is a cardinal principles of foundational economics that when value is not furnished for a good or service, or whenever anything of value are offered free of charge, there are bound to be diseconomy as it would disapply the proven benefits of price mechanism. Price mechanism leads to allocative efficiency.

This does not mean government should not provide free or subsidized services, but this should be limited to vital things highly desirable which people cannot ordinarily afford, like education. It should not extend to transport fare which everybody should be able to afford. At least, anybody that has a mission to move from a particular place to another within a city should have "need" for such commutation and if the need is genuine enough, he/ she should be ready to pay for such needs.

Making a public transport free would often undermine this necessity for needs as driver of human action and would foster futile non-economic locomotion in displacement of genuine socio-economic transportation. It has also been alleged that the management of the BRT scheme deliberately pruned down the number of buses available on public holidays to cost down the cost offering absolutely free services, if that if the case then the whole idea of free ride becomes more reprehensible. It will not make economic sense to deny people who are ready to pay for a service access to the service simply because you want to provide a limited scope of the service free.

Apart from issue above, there is another corollary issue. There is need for the workers of on the BRT buses to be sensitized and indoctrinated into the essence of BRT scheme. The concept of the BRT is to guarantee express, smooth, and efficient mode of transportation across the length and breadth of the city. Ideally operated, people who are on urgent appointment or who have to commute from one place to another with speed would park their car at home and board the rapid transit bus which should take off from terminuses at regular interval and convey them to their destination with dispatch, But contrary to the aim of these scheme, you often see some workers, (not all and not at all time though) wasting time rather unnecessarily.

There have been instances when passengers who have already got tickets would be asked to wait for the bus to be swept clean; then when people board and all the seats had been taken up, the driver would still wait to take more passengers for standing. But that is not all, you would then see the supervisors and drivers discussing leisurely as then compare the torn tickets. After this, the bus may still stop one or two times on odd locations along the routes to pick up "members of staff".

If all the above were done with dispatch, perhaps it would not become issues, but the workers often operate as if they have not the slightest sense of urgency. That is why I believe a little more education for the staff would not be out of place to sensitise them to the real concept of BRT transportation.