Full Length Research Paper

Impact of socio-economic characteristics on formal and informal public transport demands in Kwara state, Nigeria

Aworemi, J. R¹*, Salami, A. O¹, Adewoye, J. O¹ and Ilori, M. O²

¹Management Science Department, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria.

² Technology Planning and Development Unit, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: aworemi_remi@yahoo.com.Tel:+234-803-3967307

Accepted 14 January 2008

   Abstract

This paper looks at the impact of socio-economic characteristics of formal and informal public transport demand in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study is based on a purposively selected set of 256 respondent commuters in the parks of the randomly selected transport enterprises. Evidence from the study shows that income and cost of the trips played prominent roles on the public transport demand in the study area. Further analysis revealed that the respondents who own private transport, also patronize public/private transport companies because their vehicle were not in good condition, and that many factors such as political, economic, social, and technological made them to be off the road at the time of the survey. The paper suggests that government must totally support the informal ad formal public transport sectors (private transport companies) by providing well-articulated policies to improve the performance of operations and services.

Key words: Par transit, formal, Informal, public transport, passengers, socio-economic and vehicles