Charles K. Kaira

Transportation Needs of the Rural Population in Developing Countries

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Utilization of intermediate technology transport vehicles through village co-operatives

In order to fulfil a variety of transport needs of households in the village, the co-operative fleet should consist of a wide range of vehicles including bicycles, bicycle-trailers, bicycle-sidecars. animal-carts, hand-carts and wheelbarrows. Table 3 itemizes the annual costs for owning and operating any of the above mentioned vehicles. It is assumed that each vehicle is bought on a bank loan which is payable over a period of the economic life of the vehicle at hypothetical interest rates of 10 and 20 % per annum respectively. A salvage value of 20 % is assumed for each vehicle at the two discount rates of 10 and 20 % per annum respectively. The annual maintenance cost per vehicle is assumed at 30 % the value of the initial cost of the vehicles. Furthermore, it is hypothetically assumed that each vehicle is in use for 150 and 260 days in the year respectively.

If a village co-operative is to operate a fleet of vehicles for hire to individual households, the hire charges per day must be at least equal to the cost per day quoted in Table 3 for a particular vehicle. Since each vehicle can be used by more than one household in a day, the hire charges are based on three schedules of 4, 8 and 12 hours of hire time as shown in Table 4.

It is clearly revealed in Table 3 that a household that owns and uses its vehicle exclusively for its own transport purposes, has to pay irrespective of the level of utilization of the vehicle, US $ 127 and 167 annually for a bicycle and an animal-cart respectively. However, a household that uses the animal-cart for 4 hours per day for 150 days in the year is likely to pay between US $ 60 and 90 annually in hire charges which reduces annual cost in each case by almost one half. Furthermore. if a household used the animal-cart for one day a week, the annual hire charges would be between US $ 44 and 62 which reduces the annual cost by two thirds. Thus a household would save substantially if it hired vehicles as transport needs in the household arose. Moreover, the hire rates are quite low and within the income for a majority of households in rural areas of the developing countries.

If a village co-operative serving a community of 150 households were to require a fleet of 20 bicycles, 30 bicycle-trailers, 20 bicycle-sidecars, 30 animal-carts, 10 handcarts and 30 wheelbarrows, it would need an initial capital of US $ 22,300 which is equivalent to the cost of two saloon cars or the construction of 1 km of a feeder road. However, in terms of service to the inhabitants and meeting the transport needs of individual households in rural areas the former is far ahead of the latter. The size and composition of the vehicle fleet for individual co-operatives would depend on the transport needs of households and the demand for particular vehicles by households.

The advantages of a village co-operative for intermediate technology vehicles are several:

1. a variety of vehicles is available to a large number of households at much lower costs compared to those met by individual households owning particular vehicles;
2. the variety of vehicles fulfils varied transport needs of individual households at very low costs;
3. through increased utilization and sharing of costs by a group of households. the overall investment in a particular category of vehicle is reduced for the nation as a whole;
4. access to transport vehicles by a majority of households in a community is likely to reinforce and promote the community action in constructing and maintaining of all-weather tracks and paths in an area;

Table 3: Breakdown of annual costs of operating intermediate technology vehicles and aids in US $
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Table 4: Hiring charges of intermediate technology vehicles and aids in US $
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