High Performance Marine Vehicles in the seaward Extension of City Highways

Abstract

The work assesses new ways of developing the overall transport system in a sustainable way using methods that extends the road transport system to newly developed marine highways. A model that argues that present transport system is extensible where technology constraints are broken is portrayed. Government policy initiatives that support the sea transport alternative must however be in place to encourage this new developing sustainable transport option.A study was carried out to ascertain ways through which developing countries can benefit from this sustainable transport alternative which reduces road congestion,increases intermodal effectiveness,with comparable cost savings compared to air transport.High performance marine vehicles is viewed in this work as the missing link which developing third world nations must embrace to solve the ever increasing problem of road congestion arising from low transport infrastructure.Methods for assessing modal shares were applied in the work to determine ways for government assessment of modal overload in the distribution of passenger and freight traffic .In this respect, high performance marine vehicles are viewed as just part of the solutions to the existing problem. An analysis of traffic distribution in Nigeria was made to reflect the imbalance in the modal distribution of the entire sector leaning towards the road sector using available freight data.