environment. To make an impact we need a lot of vessels with uniform specifications.”
Mr Omololu consulted experienced advisors for
this project: John Waterhouse, chief concept engineer at US-based Elliott Bay Design Group and Capt Elgin McKillop, executive vice president of Canadian builders, Modern Marine Vehicles Ltd. Mr Waterhouse commented, “The three of us began discussing this at the Interferry conference in New York, in October 2010. So Interferry is clearly a theme that runs through. It is very much in line with the Interferry programme to promote ferry safety around the world. The large water bus design gives us the greatest flexibility to move the fleet around and consistency for the customer, plus it can adapt to any operational problems.” Mr Waterhouse is advising EWB on ferry system best practices and technical standards and Capt McKillop is
the project’s operations expert. The
Australian government has put its technical, financial and diplomatic weight behind EWB in support of Nigeria, as a member of the Commonwealth. The vessels will not be classed; instead the project is working with the Lagos State Waterways Authority to develop a set of internal standards. “We will be suggesting relevant external standards to try and find an existing set of regulations that we think would work well in that environment,” said Mr Waterhouse. “Following the demonstrator, it’s a matter of how quickly we can get the necessary operating concessions and financing coming together. It’s been very well received by banking institutions in Nigeria.” Mr Omololu commented, “My assessment of the low activity on our waterways, despite its huge potential to employ 10 per cent of Nigerians, revealed a lack of institutional approach to waterway utilisation. Technical,
financial and governmental
components must converge in the form of a public private partnership, which is the only way to guarantee sustainability, especially with the fuel subsidy removal.” The location of terminals is currently under discussion with the Nigerian government. Mr Waterhouse said, “The government has some terminals under development itself but we are independently going to look at where we feel it makes the most sense to site our operations. The government has an interest in promoting mass transit and it can also assist in a public relations campaign to get the safety standards message out there.” EWB met with the Lagos governor, Babatunde Fashola, on 9 December 2011 and
www.passengership.info
he essentially gave his full support. However, EWB may have to overcome the local population’s distrust of water transportation. According to Mr Omololu, “Existing ferry services are marginal with regard to safety, reliability and passenger comfort.” The new services are aiming to change the way ferries are viewed in Nigeria. He continued, “We will take a dynamic approach that starts with the policies and procedures we institute in-house as a world class ferry operation. There will be a mass awareness campaign and external independent accreditation of our safety practices by Lloyd’s of London.” Mr Omololu emphasised the project’s focus on local
sustainable mass employment. “We are trying to source the labour pool locally and train staff to internationally acceptable standards.” Training programmes will produce skilled
mariners, diesel mechanics and
operations staff. “There is also a plan to develop a world class maintenance and boat assembly facility that would transfer the skills, technology and expertise to Nigerians, ushering in a shipbuilding industry. This will be crucial to the utilisation of our national asset of over 3,000km of waterways.” If all goes as planned, the company hopes to capitalise on the Nigerian financial markets in the long term. According to Mr Waterhouse, “It’s not often that anybody has an opportunity to do something that could positively affect millions of people, but this is one of those projects.” Mr Omololu concluded, “We are fundamentally driven by four key tenets: safety, reliability, affordability and sustainability. If we are true to these, we will be successful, and hopefully in four years, we would be seen as the largest ferry operation on the African continent.” PST
Left to right: Capt Elgin McKillop, Modern Marine Vehicles; John Waterhouse, Elliott Bay Design Group; Tommy Ericson, Aluminium Boats Australia; and Muyiwa Omololu, Eko Water Buses
Passenger Ship Technology I Spring 2012 I 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100