Exploring Nexus between Transportation System and Economic Development in Nigeria: A Case of Railway Passenger Travel

Abstract

Studies frequently explored the relationship between economic performance and transport investments. However, how the performance of the economy relates to the usage of transport in Africa and Nigeria in particular is poorly explored prompting investigation on the nexus between railway passenger travel and economic development in Nigeria. The study employed the Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) Model to analyse the 60-year annual time series data of railway passenger movement, annual GDP, and inflation. Results indicate about 72.5% of the variables entered in the model accounted for 72.5% of changes observed in railway passenger traffic with Lag 1 of passenger travel exerting the most substantial influence on the output. The result further shows Inflation and GDP (x= 0.485223; P= 0.7846.) as well as their lags are redundant in forecasting the 60-year data. The study concludes that economic performance does not influence travel by railways among passengers using railways in Nigeria.

Keywords: Economic performance, Railway, Passenger travel, Transportation system