Reviving Green Inland Water Transport in Africa

Request for expression of interest for selection # 1228875

 

Name of the Project: Lake Victoria Transport Program - Phase 3 Tanzania
Sector: Transport
TF No.: TF0A1457
Project ID No. : P160955

Background
1. Inland water transport is generally much greener than road transport (see, for example, Blancas and El-Hifnawi, 2014). In the United States, over 700 million tons of domestic freight are annually shipped on waterway systems. The Washington State Ferry System, which is one of the largest ferry operators, carries about 6.2 million foot passengers and another 6 million vehicle passengers every year (WSDOT 2012). Fuel efficiency is estimated at 28 grams of CO2 per ton-km, which is 2.7 times as efficient as freight truck transport (USDOT 2007). In Europe, inland freight waterways generate 34 grams of carbon dioxide per ton-km, which is 60 percent lower than heavy road haulage (Institut für Energie und Umweltforschung, 2006).

2. Africa must possess significant potential to reduce emissions in the similar manner. In the region, about 30 countries have waterways, such as rivers and lakes, which are potentially navigable and as such represent a more environmentally benign transport mode than road, or even rail, transportation. Currently, however, few countries are making full use of the potential resource, Cote dIvoire and Ghana being two, while in a number of others, such as Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda, the provision of an effective service has deteriorated, due to neglect and limited resources despite potential demand. As growth gradually picked up in Africa, the transport demand has also been increasing, with the skewed distribution towards the road mode. Since transport infrastructure investment often has irreversible consequences, this is underlining the need to investigate the needs to restore or establish environmentally friendly transport modes, such as the inland water transport sector, with particular attention paid to intermodal connectivity. In Africa, logistic services and transport infrastructure tend to be fragmented, undermining the regions regional competitiveness and generating excess greenhouse gas (GHG).

3. Integrated inland water transport development is also important to address poverty issues in the region. Historically, inland water transport has been playing an important role in transporting people and goods in local communities in Africa. Many African cities are located along inland waters. Because of the poor quality of inland water transport services, local people and communities are becoming increasingly disconnected in the region. Lake Victoria is the largest lake in the region, around which about 30 million people live. About half of them live under $1.25 per day. This is unfavorably compared with a total poverty rate of 35 percent in the EAC countries

Objectives of the Study

4. This work aims at demonstrating and informing policymakers of the importance of green logistics involving inland water transport systems in Africa. Although it will use the case of Lake Victoria or Lake Tanganyika, where the Bank is currently preparing two separate Series of Projects (SoP), the outcome is expected to influence transport modality, including inland water transport and intermodal logistic issues, in the entire region, through providing general answers to key policy questions: How greener is the lake transport system than road transport? How much GHG could be reduced by shifting road to inland water transport?

Scope of the Study

5. Conceptually, the proposed work will pay particular attention to following aspects: (i) (price) incentives, (ii) regulation, and (iii) technology. To influence the peoples modal choice, right economic incentives need to be provided at the point of use. One of the most important parameters for policymakers is price elasticity (with service quality taken into account). If price incentives are not effective enough, some regulations are normally needed to ensure the socially optimal modal split. Finally, supporting technologies must be available on the ground. For instance, the impact of lake transport development on GHG emissions is dependent on available vessel technology as well as operations of lake ports.

6. To address these issues, the work shall cover the following components:
Task A. Economic analysis of peoples modal choice. The envisaged analytical framework to analyze users modal choice for freight should be the traditional discrete choice model (e.g., McFadden, 1974). The work will primarily focus on freight traffic (but passenger traffic may be able to be included if there are good reasons). Given the alternative specific characteristics and case-specific attributes, the conditional logit model can be estimated by interacting the demand (or shippers) characteristics with route-specific dummy variables (e.g., Greene, 1997). The interacted model is also referred to as a mixed logit model (Procher, 2011).
Task B. Regulation and institutional assessment. There has been long debate on price elasticity of transport demand, which is often found to be very low (e.g., McFadden, 1974; Espey 1998). If this is the case, some government regulation will be necessary to internalize externalities, such as climate change and road traffic crashes. Green transport is becoming increasingly important even in Africa, which has been experiencing rapid motorization and all the concomitant social and economic costs in recent years.
Task C. Energy saving estimation. Related to the above, the work will calculate how much GHG could be reduced if the optimal price and regulation took place. This is a technical assessment of energy efficiency in ferry and port operations, relative to environmental road user cost estimates.
Task D. Overall final report. Summarizing the above individual technical notes, a comprehensive final report shall be prepared with a particular focus on general policy recommendations to promote sustainable inland water systems in Africa. Collected raw data shall also be consolidated and submitted in the simple and compatible data format (such as Excel, csv, Stata, and shapefile).

Team Required for the Study
7. The proposed work is highly data-intensive and requires substantial analytical skills. The team should demonstrate its expertise and experience in carrying out quality academic works in transport economics and relevant development areas. Academic publications would be plus.
The consulting team should include at the minimum, the following key professional staff:
Transport Economist (Team Leader) with a minimum of 12 years of experience
Port Specialist with a minimum of 12 years of experience
Environment/Climate Change Specialist with a minimum of 6 years of experience, particularly in the Lake Victoria region or other African countries.
Statistician with a minimum of 6 years of experience
GIS specialist with a minimum of 2 years of experience

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

8. The project now invites eligible consulting firms to indicate their interest in providing the services. Interested consulting firms must provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services (brochures, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff, experience in the region etc.. Please note that the total size of all attachments should be less than 5MB.

9. Interested consultants may obtain further information by sending email to: Richard Martin Humphreys, rhumphreys@worldbank.org and Atsushi Iimi at aiimi@worldbank.org

Submission of Applications

10. Expressions of interest must be delivered by October 20, 2016, 11:59 pm (United States Eastern Time) using the following electronic address: https://wbgeconsult2.worldbank.org/wbgec/index.html.

NOTES
Following this invitation for Expression of Interest, a shortlist of qualified firms will be formally invited to submit proposals. Short listing and selection will be subject to the availability of funding.

 

Qualification Criteria

1. Provide information showing that they are qualified in the field of the assignment. *
2. Provide information on the technical, academic and managerial capabilities of the firm *
3. Provide information on their relevant experience to this assignment. *
4. Provide information on the qualifications of key staff. *

* - Mandatory