KARACHI:
Pakistan has not one however two transport insurance policies. The primary, titled Nationwide Transport Coverage of Pakistan 2018, was ready by the Planning Fee. The second, the Nationwide Freight and Logistics Coverage, was issued by the Ministry of Communications in 2020.
The primary coverage states that it “displays the federal government of Pakistan’s purpose to create a world-class transport sector.” The second affords up some extra element, “To drive financial development and commerce in Pakistan by growing the nation’s competitiveness via an built-in, seamless, environment friendly, dependable and cost-effective freight transport and logistics community, leveraging greatest in school know-how, processes and manpower.”
These imaginative and prescient statements miss the purpose. What Pakistan wants is a transport sector that works for its folks – all its folks, wealthy and poor. It doesn’t want it to be “world class” or leverage “best-in-class know-how”.
Studying the insurance policies themselves, one is struck by a wierd disconnect: There’s a full absence or dialogue of things essential to the design and implementation of any transport system. These embrace demographics, inhabitants density and distribution, topology – notably for intercity transport – per capita revenue, and revenue distribution.
Transport techniques don’t exist in a vacuum. There have to be a full understanding of the enabling setting. With out this understanding and particular design aims, what’s more likely to emerge is an unstructured, inefficient and largely dysfunctional mixture of transport modes. And this, sadly, is what has occurred in Pakistan.
Of specific concern is the way in which rail has been marginalised in favour of street transport. Over time, many spectacular multilane intercity highways have been constructed. Billions of rupees have been spent establishing them, and billions extra are spent yearly sustaining them.
But Pakistan doesn’t publish an official median per capita revenue determine. Primarily based on international revenue patterns and Pakistan’s GDP per capita – round $1,480 in 2024 and $1,820 in FY25 – the median revenue is probably going within the vary of $600 to $1,100 per yr. In easy phrases, even in a best-case state of affairs, half of Pakistan’s inhabitants lives on lower than $1,100 yearly.
What number of of those folks should buy a automobile to utilize our magnificent highways? A cynic would say, “Properly, they’ll all the time take a bus.” And, certainly, that is what they’re obliged to do. However right here we run into one other drawback – the difficulty of price, and particularly power price. Contemplate the next comparability between rail and street transport: Rail has a large physics benefit: metal wheels on metal rails end in a particularly low rolling resistance.
A freight prepare requires lower than one-third of the power per tonne-kilometre in comparison with a truck. This is because of decrease rolling resistance, higher aerodynamics per unit of cargo, and the power to maneuver giant volumes in a single consist. The identical logic applies to intercity passenger rail, offered trains function at excessive occupancy ranges. Electrified rail techniques (metros, suburban rail) are among the many most energy-efficient passenger modes. Passenger buses and automobiles have larger per-passenger power use until working at very excessive occupancy.
Rail additionally trumps street alongside different dimensions. Rail freight produces lower than one-fifth of the greenhouse fuel emissions of street freight per tonne-kilometre. Electrical passenger rail techniques once more rank among the many most effective modes when it comes to emissions.
Rail transport price for freight will be larger than street on a per-shipment foundation. However that is solely the case when volumes are low. At excessive volumes, rail simply outcompetes street. The identical argument applies to passenger transport prices. Working prices per-passenger kilometre can solely be decrease when trains run at excessive occupancy.
Land utilization within the case of rail can also be a lot decrease than street. The land wanted for an up-and-down prepare monitor is a fraction of the land wanted to construct a dual-carriage six-lane freeway. To not point out the harm executed to the setting and agriculture when forests and fields are changed by six-lane highways.
Pakistan possesses all of the traits that strongly favour rail over street. Nearly all main cities and industrial exercise lie alongside the Indus River basin. This basin, from Karachi to Peshawar, constitutes a pure high-density rail hall, enabling the type of volumes that make rail a greater and cheaper various to street.
There’s, in fact, the difficulty of capital price. Usually, the fee per kilometre of rail is of the identical order as street. Rail will be costlier relying on different supporting infrastructure, reminiscent of stations and bridges that must be designed to hold very heavy dynamic masses. Pakistan’s geography, demographics and financial realities all level clearly in a single path: rail must be the popular mode of transportation. But, for some cause, we appear to have marginalised rail in favour of street transport.
A wise transport coverage would look very totally different. On the intra-city stage, Pakistan’s cities are characterised by excessive inhabitants densities and usually low incomes. It’s neither sensible nor doable for everybody to personal a automobile. Coverage ought to, due to this fact, prioritise mass transit techniques in all main cities. These techniques would mix standard rail, elevated rail, trams and buses. Trains ought to function alongside high-density corridors, with trams and buses branching out to hold passengers to their remaining locations.
Such techniques would primarily be for folks’s motion. Freight motion inside cities would nonetheless need to rely primarily on vans. And for this function, roads must be constructed to the right requirements. Vehicles working on public roads must adjust to most axle load limits to forestall harm to the roads.
On the intercity stage, the logic is even clearer. Given the low-income ranges of most of our residents, the one wise system that may present transport to most of our public at an inexpensive value is rail. To this finish, we have to improve, develop and increase our rail networks and techniques to cowl all main cities. Rail have to be the first mode of transportation between cities for each folks and freight. The target is to offer quick, handy and frequent providers between most city centres.
The deal with street networks ought to primarily be on ‘farm to market’ or ‘farm to rail’ roads. These must be upgraded and constructed wherever visitors densities don’t justify a rail hyperlink. Such roads are essential to our primarily agricultural financial system since produce have to be moved rapidly to minimise loss and wastage.
Pakistan has spent huge money and time constructing a street community that finally serves solely a small minority. It’s time now to place the wants of the overwhelming majority – the poor – over the wants of the few.
The author is chairman of Mustaqbil Pakistan and holds an MBA from Harvard Enterprise Faculty
