Customs Procedures Cause Transport Delays in the Gulf - Essay Example

Literature Review – Customs procedures cause transport delays in the Gulf Modes of transport in the GulfCurrently, the existing links to the gulf region’s transport system often vary significantly depending on the transport volumes being served. Additionally, these transport systems and routes often reach various levels of congestion and capacity utilization (Singh 13). It is also important to acknowledge the fact that statistics like road counts are often not broadly available. For this reason, they are always given on an certain determined annual average. However, these statistics are in most times concentrated on limited numbers of links and nodes that feature mostly during limited time periods. In the gulf region, the modes of transport mostly used include roads, which make up a higher percentage. The road transport is used in transporting petroleum products from their mining centers to other collection points. However, most countries in the gulf have advanced in pipeline transport because of its efficiency in reducing congestion at the ports and increasing movements of people and goods. Despite the developments, it is important to create policies that increase these movements in order to increase the transport capacity of these transport systems and centers. Besides development of an effective pipeline system, rails have also been used widely in the gulf for transportation of non-liquid goods. The rail is deemed to be faster than road and cheaper compared to air transport. These developments have been effective in ensuring that efficiency and effectiveness have been achieved in most countries of the Gulf region. 2. Distribution and road congestion It is important to understand that congestion is an essential challenge affecting road transport for the transport policies at many levels, something that gets policy planners in any country looking for ways of ensuring that it is solved in the most effective way. In the gulf region, the costs associated with road congestion have been estimated to be more than 1% of the country’s GDP. The mitigation approaches and strategies for this problem have been the most important priority to the infrastructure, read changing procedures as well as traffic management. The process of measuring the level and amount of congestion in a country is quite a complicated process especially to the non-uniform as well as traffic spatial distribution. The process of achieving efficiency in the transport networks has become an important priority for the transport policy in the gulf region. The region has been striving towards establishment of a highly competitive as well as resource efficient system of transport for the region. Effective transport is said to be an important factor that causes the growth and increase of economic activities in a country. Effective transport makes people to move to various destinations quite easily, including goods from producers to the final consumption points. Many governments try to ensure that they create reliable infrastructure that can cause faster movement of people and goods from one point to another. An ineffective transport system is often characterized by extreme delays in movements of people and goods, a situation that is highly unrecommended in any country that is geared towards making and improving their transport infrastructure (Barrett 15). Current causes of road congestion in the gulf Qatar, one of the countries in the gulf that continues to suffer from road and traffic congestion has been trying all it can in order to ensure smooth flow of traffic to not only ease movements of people in the cities, but also to increase domestic and foreign investments. The country’s city management has been trying to counter the challenge of traffic congestion for a very long time, but admits that traffic congestion is quite a common problem that affects many cities globally. One of the reasons attributed to the traffic congestion has been the rapid ongoing process of urbanization happening in Qatar, which is thought to be the main cause of the prevailing challenge. The urbanization process has resulted in increased demands for the country’s infrastructure as well as level of service provision in the country. It is thought that the absence of reliable resources in the country needed for establishment of an effective and efficient transport system has contributed greatly to the current challenge. This means that most of the countries cities continue to face the problem of road congestion, leading to a massive slow down in the movements of people from one place to another. However, the establishment of effective policies to guide transport processes in the country will go a long way in streamlining road transport. Another reason being thought as exacerbating the problem of road congestion in Qatar, especially in Doha has been the acute shortage of various traffic management schemes that can guide traffic management. As a result, vehicle emissions while on traffic have been seen as health and environmental hazards. The country has started investing heavily in rail transport so as to diversify the means of transport. In this process, people will have wide choices especially when it comes to means of transport, something that will ease the demand for road transport and thus the challenge of road congestion. 3. Customs procedures and how they cause transport delays In many ports, delays in transport have often been attributed to many procedures that have been developed to guide port procedures. In some countries, these procedures are very bureaucratic such that they can cause collapse of businesses that depend on the goods being cleared at the ports (Shister 9). In both exportation and importation transactions, the complication experienced often confront a series of problems and in some cases, they are sometimes difficult to effectively comprehend and deal with. One of these issues is concerned with payments of the demurrage charges in the process of clearing goods in the ports (Armbruster 6). Sometimes the associated delay can be intentional and sometimes may be complicated because of the custom procedures. In this case, it is important to note that these delays often cause unnecessary expenses on the goods being sold, something that is not desirable for businesses. For this reason, port management systems should be designed in a way that they ease transport procurers so that business do not suffer unprecedented loses because of delays that can be avoided effectively with enactment of policies that can improve port operations (Pekkarinen and Sari 17). An efficient port system is desirable not just for businesses, but also for the general growth of a country’s economy, something that countries in the gulf region have effectively embraced. Finally, it is important to appreciate the fact that global commerce largely depends on the reliable and smooth movement of people and raw materials, finished goods as well as parts through effective and efficient supply chains. However, when supply chains tend to become highly globalised with various long distances and different lead times, the probability of having longer times in the shipment process become eminent. As discussed above, most of the cause of delays in the transport systems stem from various aspects like capacity constraints, lengthy and bureaucratic customs processes, missed transshipments as well as the presence of natural disasters in some places. Those factors that can be avoided in order to increase efficiency in the transportation problems are supposed to be avoided. This means that not only in the gulf, but also in other countries, smooth processes of transport are essential towards the increase and rise of economic growth and development. This realization has led to the countries of the gulf to diversify their transportation processes in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the transportation process. Works Cited Armbruster, William. "Gaining in the Gulf." Journal of Commerce. Mar 21 2011. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. Barrett, Frank. "Dubai ... its Dead Posh and Becks; Frank Barrett Joins the Celebrities Driving a Pounds 125bn Tourism Phenomenon in the Gulf." Mail on Sunday: 39. Feb 24 2008. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. < http://search.proquest.com/docview/328955588/54A6735D11DA42CAPQ/1?accountid=62741> Pekkarinen, Annukka, and Sari Repka. "Maritime Transport in the Gulf of Bothnia 2030." Ambio 43.6 (2014): 791-800. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. Shister, Neil. "The Port of New Orleans is Coming Back... Slowly." World Trade 19.2 (2006): 18-20. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. < http://search.proquest.com/docview/228228962/C161071D0C543E0PQ/16?accountid=62741 > Singh, Mandeep. "Key Road Projects in the Pipeline." McClatchy - Tribune Business News Jan 12 2012. ProQuest. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. Read More