Developing an Appropriate Means of Transportation in Codo,Timor Leste - Report Example

Developing an appropriate means of transportation in Codo,Timor Leste. May 2013 Summary This report is a design concept of developing a sustainable transportation means in Code, Timor Leste. The reports give a background of the benefits of having efficient transportation with poverty being linked to poor transportation. The project has been accomplished in four tasks with each of the group member being in charge one task. The report has clearly laid out the communication procedure among the group members so as to ensure a smooth running of the project. Introduction It is a historical fact good communication which is compost of good road networks and automobiles provide a favourable environment for development. There has been a universal approval that investment in transportation such that there has been no need to have an evaluation on what contribution they give to economic as well as social development. It has been observed that there is a correlation between transportation access and the level of economic development. According to the finding of Airey (1993), the house income of more accessible villages in terms of transportation was found to more than the income of the less accessible areas. A study conducted in Bangledesh indicated that good transportation resulted in a 33 per cent house hold income increase, 78 per cent in fisheries and livestock while the agricultural increase was 24 per cent (Ahmed and Hossain, 1990). Transportation plays an important role when it comes to access to vital social and economic facilities. Trips made in order to accomplish social and economic needs including going to the markets, to schools and other education facilities, to religious centres, visiting friends and relatives and also for employment as a very important of rural transport like Codo Timor Leste. The results of evaluation of road investment clearly indicates that a considerable high level of passengers which is well above the need for transportation of goods. The high need for people located in rural set ups like Codo is a clear indication that they are highly valued and their emphasis need to be felt when it comes to accessibility planning. If there is improved access to the centres of activity such as the government offices, markets and credit facilities this will lead to welfare gains emanating from an increase in agriculture based production and marketing opportunity increase. When there is an improvement in transportation in Codo there will be numerous social benefits including improvement in the quality of life, flow of information, labour mobility and improved marketing efficiency. Insufficient access to economic and social facilities comes with a very high economic price payment with emphasis being placed on health and education. Poor people have their major asset as being the labour they provide. Poverty exposes people to high frequency of illness and during their illness they may not have any savings to support them. There is need to promote labour in the region so as to realize a reduction in the level of poverty and this can be achieved through increasing the level of access to educational and the health facilities. The importance of transportation is clearly indicated in a World Development Report of 1993 in which it was stated that the obstacle in utilization of health services was lack of transportation (The World Bank, 1993). If the distance to the health facilities is long, with no reliable transportation being provided, this discourages people from seeking care. Poor accessibility of educational facilities also adversely affects the humans’ well being with several study findings indicating there being a correlation between indicators such as life expectancy where the primary education of the girl child being the most important variable (Stewart, 1988). Considering the entire Timor Leste, poverty is found to be wide spread in the most fragile states and it is believed that the solution is to implement projects which are to benefit the poor so as to help in moving closer to millennium development goals. The impact that transport infrastructure has had on poverty in many countries is a clear demonstration that investment in transport projects, when designed specifically to benefit the poor, will always result in a lasting effect in poverty reduction, empowerment of the poor in addition to bringing about overall economic and social stability of the entire country. For the cases where fragile states are concerned, the effect may also include social stability and bringing down the chances of conflict occurrence. According to (Riley, 2006). there is a dense road network in Timor-Leste which approximate to 6,000 km, 3000km of which serves the rural areas in remote mountainous terrain. Approximately half of the network is paved, however, the roads are in poor conditions, which limits to a great extent access to market, healthcare and education facilities located in rural areas. Timor-Leste households were surveyed when they participated in a transport sector study with the data collected about their views with regards to poverty and what they could attribute it to in the country. Out of a total of 9 focus groups five indicated that the poor state of the roads together with the poor transportation system was their major concern. The next concern which was cited was in ability to have access income generating opportunities, which can be linked to lack of good transportation which make it impossible to access market activity centers. The inability to access other primary facilities such as schools, water supply and healthcare facilities was also considered by many to be an issue of high priority that is linked to poverty. This is a project which will involve developing an appropriate means of transportation for Code Timor Leste. In order to ensure that there is ease for transport in Code Timor Leste the project conduct an investigation on the transport needs, the transport options available and the road conditions of the various. In Code Timor Liste area transport is a major with most of the resident being poor and not being in a position unable to afford their own vehicles and this leaves public transport to be the only option for most of the residents. The public transport in common use include local buses and mass also the trucks. This form of transport being relied ob by the population has been found to be unreliable bearing in mind the poor states of the roads. Children are forced to cover very long distances with majority of them taking three to four hours walking to and from school. This situation begs for a quick solution that can address the transport challenges (Riley A. and Tanya B, 2006). The desired transport solution need to be economical in fuel consumption, being cheap enough to be affordable by Codo Timor Leste and also need to have a sound maintenance plan incorporated. The solution offered will need to address various issues that will ensure that success is achieved. This will include vehicle purchasing costs, the maintenance cost, the payback period and also if the government can be willing to offer any subsidy (Colin, 2010). In offering the solution there will be need do an analysis of cost against benefit of the solution in order to ascertain if the solution can be the best option for the local residents and also in order to convince the government to invest in the transport solution. The solution to be offered will need to be reliable in terms of fuel availability, socially acceptable and also be mechanically sound. As a student involved in the Code Timor Leste project we will expect gain a lot of benefits in our career development. Involvement in the project gives the participants a golden chance of exploring the theoretical knowledge gathered in class at the field and helping in solving human problems. Communication barrier between the project participants and the local people is likely to one of the major challenges likely to be encountered in the project execution process. Also the participants will spend considerably a long time at the field and this could mean exposure to some form of health hazards resulting from taking of untreated water, not having quality meals in addition to unfavourable weather condition including low temperatures in the night hours and very high temperatures at night. By the participants encountering all this problems, the students will learn many survival tactics for future use when undertaking projects at the field level. Group members task allocation For the project to be successful there are some specific tasks which will be assigned to the four group members. The tasks which are to be undertaken by the four team are discussed below. Surveying of schools by Natalia One of the major concerns of the project area is offering transport to children who travel long distances to school. This will therefore call for a survey of the schools in the project area identifying the number of children who need the transportation service. The group member in charge will visit schools identifying the population and the distances travel in order to access the schools. This is a task which is very important and the group member will be allocated enough time to accomplish it. The task will involve the group member to seek authorisation from the relevant authority to enable them get the relevant information from the schools. The schools will be asked to on the possibility of contributing towards sustaining a means of transport by getting contribution from the parents with the means of transport itself being contributed by the government and the donors. The sustenance fee of the school transport will go towards payment of the driver, fuel cost and maintenance of the vehicles. The cultural aspect to be incorporated in children transportation system will also the sought out from the schools. Assessment of roads by Jonathan The second goal of the project will be assessment of the roads within the area where the transportation project is to be undertaken and establishing the modes of transport that are available in the areas. The project team member will identify the roads which need to be rehabilitated in this will be classified as motarable (used by cars) and two wheeled (used by bicycles, motorcycles). The team will look for ways in which the community members’ participation will be maximized by setting out clear mechanism of the local community participation. The motorable roads will be designed such that they can have a side path for use by motorcyclist, bicycle riders and those walking on foot. This will ensure that this means can be promoted to be used in the project area as cheaper means of transport and which can be used as a complement to the motor vehicles. There will be information sharing from the initial stage highlighting the likely benefits, the level of funding and what the expected of the community in terms of contribution and participation. There will be identification of the members who can be able to offer some technical services, those who will be engaged in some coordination of activities and resource provision. The type of resources to be sourced from the local community is maram and gravel to be used in the construction. The other community members will be expected to work and paid a considerably small fee. The team leader will facilitate basic training to the locals in road construction. Equipments like wheelbarrows; jembes will be bought and will be used and preserved by the local community. The use of local materials gravel will ensure sustainability of the project. In the rehabilitation of 2-wheel roads the local people will be expected to be in full control of the projects. There will be selection of village board members who will receive some basic training in construction work and supervision and the locals will be expected to pay a small fee to the board members. The team member will agree with the local people on how the roads are to be maintained. The maintenance of the road will be expected to voluntary by the locals where each household would be expected to be allocated a portion of the road that they will be charged with maintenance. There will be a punishment which will be directed towards those who will fail to maintain their portion. In areas where allocation of the portion to some specific house hold may not be possible maintenance will be through team work application where in every four months where all over 18 people will be expected come together for the maintenance work. Those who may not want to participate directly may contribute money or bring food to the labourers. The motorable maintenance will be used in helping solve the problem of unemployment in the area. This will be through the establishment road maintenance fund as this has been proved to be an effective way of maintenance of selected access roads (Malmberg‐Calvo, 1998).for this to be effective there will be need to have private road association and road fund being formalized by having a written agreement between the parties. Assessment of transportation cost by Lukas The third task will be assessment of the transportation cost in the project area. The team member will be charged with assessing the cost of the transport used the project area at different times in different weather condition and the contribution of high cost due to lack of efficiency and scarcity of the vehicles. The prices of the fuels at the local market will also be and how this influence the cost of transport will be investigated. The reliability of the transport to school going children will also be assessed and the distance the students are dropped away from the school. Maintenance and repair services for vehicles by Yvonne The maintenance of vehicles and repair is a very important aspect of transportation. The team member responsible for the task will be responsible for identifying community members who can be trained in this areas so that to ensure that these services are easily accessible. The team member will have to identify the local people who already have the skills and collaborate with the rest of community to identify other suitable members who can be trained. The trainers will receive payment for their services by the project sponsors. The community will also need to liaise with the government to donate a training ground. After the training the qualified personnel will be helped in establishing garages from where they will offer repair services. The government will also be approached so that they can look into providing subsidized spare parts for motorcycles, bicycles. Outline the Teams Operating Rules. The group members will be expected to complete the assigned tasks within the expected time with the completed work being handed to the other group members through the group leader who member will choose. In case there will be any need of clarification on any issue, it will be expected for the request to be made to the group members in time. The group leader will act as the spokes person of the group. Group members will be required to collect all relevant information concerning the whole project more so on their specific tasks. Information sharing will be expected to be done only in areas in areas regarded to be safe so as to avoid the project information ending up in the wrong hands. Procedures of Communication There is need to have a well coordinated communication between the group members and other project participants. E-mail will be the most preferable means of communication exchanging materials with SMS being used to alert team members if any information have been sent through mail. Communication on the project matters will not be encouraged on hours which are not recognized be officially allocated to project like late night and during holidays like Sunday. When delivering any information team members will be discouraged from using public facilities where information is likely to be accessed by an authorized people. Group members will be expected to be generous with each other with regards to project information. The group members will be expected to treat each other in a professional manner. In case there is a meeting to be held in the process of the project, group members will, be supposed to get the information at least 24 hours to the actual time so as to ensure that members are not likely to miss important meetings or be ill prepared for the meetings. The culture of checking mails very frequently will be encouraged as this has been chosen as the most convenient way of disbursing information. Last minute cancellation of scheduled meetings will be discouraged but if it this occurs, members will have to understand. It will be required that members who are unable to attend meeting to inform the group leader in advance and if possible the absent member delegate their duties to other team member. Conclusion This design concept of developing a sustainable transportation means in Code, Timor Leste has addressed many aspects of the projects. The reported has enumerated all the relevant aspects of the project area and it is hoped that the finer details will fit into this concept. It is also hoped that the local authority will fully assist in ensuring that the design concept is implemented if not adding some more improvement on it. The team members are also optimistic to have a lot of corporation of the local community. References AhmedD, R and M Hossain (1990). Development Impact of Rural Infrastructure in Bangladesh. International Food Pohcy Research Institute, Washington D.C. Airey. T and Strandberg (1993). Local Level Transport in Sub-Saharan Africa. Find report on Rural Household Travel and Transport Patterns, ITTransport/ILO, Ardington and Geneva. Stewart, F (1988). Basic Needs Strategies, Human Rights and the Right to Development. Centro Studi Luca D’Agliano, Working Paper No.2. World bank (1993). World Development Report 1993- Investing in Health. World Bank, Washington D.C. Riley. A. and Tanya B. (2006). Poverty reduction and transportation infrastructure in Timor-Leste. USAID. Read More