Estimates of Economic Cost of Congestion Travel Time Delay Between Onne-Seaport and Eleme-Junction Traffic Corridor

Abstract Travelers along the Onne-seaport to Eleme-junction road corridor in the hub of the oil and gas industry in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria, have continued to experience very serious traffic congestion travel time delays, culminating into loss of man-hours and declining productivity. This study estimated the economic cost of traffic congestion travel time delay along the corridor, with a view to providing economic justification for developing traffic management policies and road infrastructure, to remedy it. A mixed research approach was adopted in which data was sourced through field survey and from secondary sources. The gross output model was used to estimate the output losses occasioned by productive time losses related to traffic congestion. The study established that the average daily traffic congestion travel time delay along the traffic corridor by travelers in trucks, car, bus and taxi modes are 104.17 minutes, 46.60 minutes, 58.5 minutes and 56.4 minutes respectively. The estimated daily aggregate economic cost of output losses associated with traffic congestion time delay on the corridor is 46049809.8 naira (210923.5USD) for all modes. This justifies any investment in traffic congestion remedial strategies along the route.