Transportation Cost in Lusaka a Tore on Your Budget

I am made to ask whether i am the only one who was just frustrated about managing to live a life in Lusaka or any other busy town without seeing the cost of moving fro knowm one point to another. This could either be using a bus or your own car daily. It's really surprising that many people can live a life in a city complaining about transportation cost but yet do nothing about it. Its also worrying that people admire a certain type or mode of transport without necessarily taking time to understand the cost benefit of using such a tool.

I will give you a better picture to help you our readers of why you should be thinking twice about finding an alternative to the kind of transport you are using which can help you save alot of costs from transport.

An average of 80% working class and people running small or medium size businesses use buses every day as their means of transportation. So to understand the cost involved lets assume Bwalya, a working class who gets paid on a monthly basis K5,000. He goes to work everyday from Monday to Friday and he lives in Kamwala South where he will use four buses to get to his place of work in Ibex Hill. Lets assume that the main reason he decided to live in Kamwala south was maybe to rent a cheaper house which he is paying K1,500 monthly and remains with K3,500 as a disposable income. Now lets say he pays an average of K10 to board every bus he uses to and from work then on a daily basis he spends a total of K40 on transport alone which will translate to K200 weekly and K800 monthly. Knocking that off from his Salary he will remain with just K2,500 as a disposable income. Therefore, a person like Bwalya will spend every year an average of K9,000 on transport alone.

Lets assume he gets a motorcycle and he uses shorter distances to get to his work place. A good motor bike cost an average of K8,000 and with it you can use for a distance of 50km every week you can spend fuel costs amounting to just K60. Therefore, on a yearly basis you can spend a total of around K3,000 inclusive with maintenance and lubricants which can save you K5,000 yearly when you compare with the earlier illustration i gave for Bwalya assuming the same work place.

Now, i know alot of people dislike motorbikes as a mode of transport but trust me with an experience of using it for the last 5 years now its the best cost saving, productive, convenient and safest investment tool i will ever own. With the motorbike am able to use it for other productive errands such as farming and monitoring my house construction. However, many would feel owning a car is better off than a motorbike because you can use it for alot of errands which a motorbike can not do. Well that depends on what costs are involved but looking at the cost of maintaining a car as compared to a motorbike you will appreciate just how a motorbike surpass the vehicle especially looking at the traffic levels today you will appreciate the services of a motorbike. With a car, on average you should be able to use K100 assuming its a very efficient and you use around the same distance used in the other illustration of 10km daily. If you add on maintenance and lubricants you can assume an extra provision of K100 monthly. If you do the math, you could spend upto K2,000 monthly and K24,000 yearly. Looking at this cost would make me think twice of ever owning a car as compared to a motorbike.

In as much as people are able to manage living a different lifestyle that they can afford for as long as it suits their income, it should always be realised that saving should be a culture we should be practicing to ensure that we value every resource utilisation and maximisation. Let us strive to be extra cautious of unnecessary costs that my significantly affect our disposable income and expenditure on essential goods and services.

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