Status, Challenges and Strategies of Dar es Salaam Seaport-Hinterland Connectivity

Dar es Salaam seaport serving the Tanzania hinterland and other seven landlocked countries in East and Central Africa, The rapid economic growth of the hinterlands resulted to the increasing demand for overseas products from their country’s residents, this create congestion at Dar es Salaam seaport. Due to this, the connection for the movement of commodities from seaport to its hinterland has noticeably very slow. A qualitative research methodology technique is used in this article to explore the status, challenges and strategies of Dar es Salaam seaport-hinterland connectivity. The findings reveal that even though Dar es Salaam seaport is linked to the hinterland through both railway and road transport, but is hugely dependent on road transport. Regular tariffs increase for imports, insufficient number of trains and wagons connecting Dar es Salaam seaport, poor qualities of roads and railway infrastructures, congestion at the roads and the absence of new freight station are the main existing challenges in which significantly affect the smoothness of Dar es Salaam seaport-hinterland connectivity. Furthermore, the article proposes various enhancing strategies to combat named challenges. These strategies will be crucial to the government in decision making on how to develop and advancing Dar es Salaam seaport-hinterland connectivity.