AbstractsTransportation

Attempts have already been made at exploiting the full transport potential of Lake Volta for a smooth operating, low cost, transport system which will offer Ghana an extra transport capacity and a n alternative to road transport in the shipment of goods and passengers between northern and southern Ghana. A transport system in the early stages of development is in development over the 400km length of the Lake. It has some facilities for handling the increasing volume of traffic but this falls short of providing the necessary quality of services for handling passengers and tourists, who patronize it, and volumes of cargo it has to haul. The existence of bottlenecks in the present system’s operation, like poor access routes to port hinterlands and lack of adequate cargo handling facilities places a limit on its performance. From the technical point of view, the lake is well suited for inland navigation and the lake has a great potential for absorbing the extra traffic burden on the country’s road transport network, offering a cheaper and therefore a competitive route between the North and the South. Its development will go a long way towards making possible the national development objective of regional balance and resource development through opening up for agricultural and industrial development of the northern regions. This project is aimed at examining the overall economic significance and justification of a programme aimed at improving and expanding the Volta Lake Transport System (VLTS) with special reference to present and future transport demand and traffic flows between Accra/Tema region and the northern parts of Ghana for goods and services. It further intends to make recommendations as to the improvements of the Lake transport system (LTS) to meet the increasing transport demand through identification of VLTS capacity gaps. On the basis of the above it is intended to define and justify facilities to be provided towards the achievement of these ends and hence make detailed proposals for the design of and evolvement of a design for the passenger and goods terminal for Lake Port Akosombo capable of handling the projected traffic for the forecast year 1990. 0.2 Nature and scope of the survey Towards these objectives, information had to be collected from published sources and through own interviews with VRA and VLTC administrative and operational staff on: (i) Lake Transport Systems (ii) VLTS present and projected traffic demand (iii) Operational set-up of ULTC (iv) Other related aspects of the project. Interviews with officials from VLTC and ULTC were necessary to understand the technical, operating and social aspects of the Inland water Navigational System. Through these interviews and the various reference materials it was established that: - From the technical point of view, L. Volta is well suited for inland navigation and there exist problems of uncleared lake bottom and seasonal shallow waters, in portions of the lake, which are surmountable at current lake levels. - The minimum depth of water…