Freight Transportation Choice Strategy For Zimbabwe Railways

Over the years the National Railways of Zimbabwe(NRZ)suffered from unrelenting competition from the road trucks in freight transportation which resulted in a massive loss of customers and subsequently,once a sustainable business.Currently,NRZ is trying to revamp its entire operational strategies in a bid to regain its lost market share.As such,this study has been impelled to demystify customers’ preferences as far as freight mode choice decisions along the Bulawayo-Harare corridor are concerned.For this purpose,a binary logit model will be applied to analyze freight customers’ shipping behavior in the context of modal choice.Amongst other mode choice models,this model is considered to provide a much better and accurate predictive probability of mode choice.It is also suitable;in a case where only two alternatives are available(i.e.,rail and road).Initially,a pilot study was conducted to determine the most preferred freight transport service attributes from customers Only those factors with a high importance rating according to customers’ perspective were considered for the analysis.To collect data for the discrete choice model,the study applied the combined Revealed Preference(RP)and Stated Preference(SP)survey technique to a sample of150 participants.After the survey data was gathered,the responses were then coded for the Binary Logistic analysis using the SPSS software.From the correlation analysis,nine attributes out of ten were proven to be statistically significant and were then used in the calibration of the logit model.The service quality attributes are;the age of the organization,time,tonnage,cost,monthly revenue range,frequency,reliability,the safety of goods,and information availability.The current freight modal share in the market is showing that the road freight mode is dominating with above 80% of the market share compared to the rail freight.The model was able to compute the predictive probability of both modes within the prevailing range of 80:20 market share ratio.This means the model can reflect real situations.Based on the model,scenario analysis is carried out.Four scenarios are constructed,each with an assumed change in current status.Potential ratios of customers shifting from road to rail result from the model,which can provide useful references for NRZ to make an operational strategy.