The big push: ‘on’ roads vs. rolling stock on rails, its impact on Ghana’s 24-hour economy (1)

Ghana stands at a historic crossroads. As the nation boldly pursues its vision of a 24-hour economy — an economy that thrives around the clock, generates employment continuously, and integrates fully into global supply chains — the question of infrastructure strategy becomes not merely technical but existential.

For decades, Ghana has invested disproportionately in roads and road transport. While roads remain essential, an overreliance on this single mode of transport has exacted enormous costs: thousands of lives lost annually, staggering economic losses from road accidents, crippling urban congestion, severe environmental degradation, and a freight system that is structurally ill-suited to the demands of a modern, competitive economy.

This article makes a compelling, evidence-based case that Ghana’s path to sustainable development, economic resilience, and social equity runs along steel rails. A strategic, phased, and nationally committed pivot towards rail — passenger and freight — is not a luxury. It is an economic imperative, a public health emergency response, an environmental obligation, and a national security necessity. The time for bold decisions is now.

1. Introduction: Ghana’s transport crossroads

Ghana’s economy is dynamic, growing, and ambitious. The government’s commitment to a 24-hour economy envisions continuous industrial activity, expanded agro-processing, vibrant port operations, seamless logistics chains, and a population that can move safely and affordably at all hours. Yet this vision is being undercut by a transport infrastructure anchored almost entirely on roads that are overstretched, under-maintained, and increasingly dangerous.

The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) reports that road traffic accidents claim approximately 2,200 lives every year — a figure widely believed to be significantly underreported. Ghana’s road network, while extensive, suffers from chronic maintenance deficits. The trunk road network alone requires billions of cedis in rehabilitation annually. Meanwhile, the country’s rail network — once a jewel of colonial-era infrastructure connecting mines, farms, and ports — lies largely dormant, a victim of decades of neglect, policy indifference, and a misguided belief that roads alone can carry a nation forward.

The choice between ‘more roads’ and ‘rolling stock on rails’ is not binary — both are needed. But the weight of evidence from economics, public health, environmental science, urban planning, and national security all point in the same direction: Ghana must urgently, strategically, and decisively invest in its rail sector if it is to build an economy that is not only active 24 hours a day, but that is safe, clean, inclusive, and globally competitive.

2. The economic case: Rail as the engine of the 24-hour economy

2.1 Freight efficiency and competitiveness

The economics of freight transport are unambiguous: rail moves bulk goods at a fraction of the cost per tonne-kilometre compared to road transport. In mature economies, rail freight costs are typically three to five times lower per unit than road haulage for comparable distances. For Ghana’s mining sector — gold, bauxite, manganese — its agricultural sector, and its growing industrial base, this cost differential is transformational.

Currently, Ghana loses enormous value because commodity producers must rely on truck haulage over distances where rail would be far more economical. The Accra-Kumasi-Takoradi triangle — the economic heartland of Ghana — was once served by a rail network precisely because the colonial administrators understood the economics. Restoring and modernising this corridor alone would dramatically reduce the cost of doing business for hundreds of enterprises.

A 24-hour economy requires logistics systems that can operate continuously and reliably. Rail systems, by their nature, are schedulable, high-capacity, and weather-resilient in ways that road transport is not. A single freight train can carry the equivalent of 60 to 80 trucks’ worth of cargo. For bauxite transportation from Awaso to Takoradi, for timber movement, for agricultural produce from the Northern regions — rail is not merely an alternative. It is the only economically rational option at scale.

2.2 Port efficiency and the Tema-Accra corridor

The Port of Tema is Ghana’s primary gateway to global trade, handling millions of tonnes of cargo annually. Yet the evacuation of cargo from Tema is almost entirely road-dependent, creating chronic congestion on the Tema motorway and surrounding arterials. This congestion imposes direct economic costs — fuel waste, driver time, perishable goods spoilage, and delayed industrial inputs — that run into hundreds of millions of cedis annually.

A dedicated rail freight link between Tema Port and inland dry ports and logistics hubs would dramatically improve port efficiency, reduce dwell times, slash congestion costs, and make Ghana’s trade gateway more competitive compared to Abidjan and Lagos. In the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), this competitiveness advantage is not abstract — it directly determines whether Ghana becomes a preferred hub for continental trade or a peripheral player.

2.3 Tourism and passenger revenue

Rail tourism is a significant and growing economic opportunity. Countries from Switzerland to South Africa generate substantial tourism revenue from scenic rail journeys. Ghana’s diverse landscape — from the Volta Region to the coast, from Ashanti forests to the savannah north — offers extraordinary potential for tourism rail products. An Accra-Cape Coast-Takoradi coastal rail line, for example, would simultaneously serve commuters, stimulate tourism along Ghana’s Heritage Coast, and reduce road accident risk for the thousands who travel this corridor daily.

In the context of a 24-hour economy, passenger rail enables workers to travel safely during early morning and late evening hours when road accident risk is highest. It enables shift workers in industrial zones, hospital staff, market traders, and students to commute affordably and predictably — unlocking productive hours that are currently losing to exhaustion, accident fear, or simply the inability to travel safely at night.

2.4 Employment creation

Rail investment is a powerful direct and indirect job creator. Direct employment spans engineering, operations, maintenance, station management, catering, security, and logistics. Indirect employment multipliers are even larger: rail corridors stimulate commercial activity along their routes, enable agro-processing facilities to locate near railheads, and open up previously isolated communities to market participation. Studies from comparable developing economies suggest that every dollar invested in rail infrastructure generates three to five dollars in broader economic activity.

For Ghana, where youth unemployment is a persistent structural challenge, a national rail development programme is simultaneously an infrastructure project and a human capital development programme — creating skilled, dignified, and sustainable employment at scale.

3. The road safety crisis: A national emergency

3.1 The toll of road traffic accidents

As a road safety advocate, I have spent years confronting the devastating human and economic consequences of Ghana’s road traffic accident epidemic. The statistics are stark: Ghana loses approximately 2,200 lives every year on its roads. The true figure, accounting for deaths that occur after hospital admission, is likely higher. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among Ghanaians aged 15 to 44 — the most economically productive segment of the population.

The World Health Organisation estimates that road traffic accidents cost Ghana between 1.6 per cent and 2 per cent of GDP annually. In a country with a GDP of approximately USD 75 billion, this represents a loss of USD 1.2 to 1.5 billion every year — funds that could build hospitals, schools, water systems, and yes, railways. This is not merely an accident statistic. It is a development crisis.

3.2 The safety mathematics of rail

Rail transport is statistically between 10 and 40 times safer per passenger kilometre than road transport, depending on the comparison context. This is not a marginal difference — it is a difference of an order of magnitude. The physics are straightforward: trains run on fixed tracks, are operated by trained professionals, are subject to rigorous maintenance and inspection regimes, and do not share their right-of-way with the chaotic, variable, and unpredictable conditions of public roads.

In Ghana, a significant proportion of fatal road accidents involve heavy commercial vehicles — trucks and articulated lorries — that are fundamentally incompatible with the road standards they traverse. Every tonne of freight shifted from road to rail is a reduction in the risk exposure of every other road user. The relationship is direct, measurable, and profound.

The writer is the Immediate Past President, Ghana Institute of Safety and Environmental Professionals (2016–2022), Road Safety Advocate, and a Traditional Ruler.

BY NANA ANNOR AMIHERE II

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