IT was truly an eventful, eye-opening and refreshing involvement when my family and I took a ride in a recently launched SGR (standard gauge railway) train operating between Dar es Salaam’s Dr John Magufuli and Dodoma’s Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan stations last week.

The memorable experience began right at the entrance of the ultra-modern building where we went through the usual security checks before proceeding to the upper floors, where we also had time for refreshments as we curiously waited for the scheduled time to board the train ready for the journey.

I was amazed by the number of fellow passengers, said to number 900 in total, joyful, busy and some restless, which suggested to me how this long-awaited transformative mode of transportation was a critical game changer for our country.

Planning for my journey was made in a manner that we as a family would not miss even a slice of experience of that modern innovative journey so as to make it emerge as our most adventurous thus far.

Additionally, as we were planning for the trip, our eagerness was to experience the fancy of travelling in all passenger classes – that is, the economy, business and royal categories.

On the other hand, we made the informed choice of stopping over in Morogoro municipality before finally getting to our destination, Dodoma city – the national capital – purposely to be able to harness experiences of all the three big stations of Dar, Morogoro and Dodoma.

However, it was unfortunate that we were unable to execute the prototype of our plan in full as we apparently missed out tickets for royal class travel from Dodoma back to Dar. We only managed to experience economy class (Dar-Morogoro) and business class (Morogoro-Dodoma and Dodoma-Dar), the latter being an express train.

In a word, the experience was simply awesome, starting with my wife and I freshening up the old memories when we travelled in what we used to call ‘Treni ya Njia ya Kati’. That meant the central railway line, plying between Dar and Mwanza back in 1990s.

We made attempts to compare that with what people are experiencing now in the country – and it is amazing indeed!

The difference is incomparable – from the look and feel – all the way to the time it takes to move between stations.

If we are to look at it as only the beginning of a journey to connect Dar and Mwanza on one side, the other being Dar to Kigoma, the inner feeling just shows that the future is so bright that one needs to put on heavy shades.

It is irrefutable that our country has reached a critical turning point in terms of development of transport and various other infrastructure, especially when we refer to SGR – to us, easily a notable transport disruptor or game changer.

At this point, I feel compelled to acknowledge our government under the leadership of President, Samia Suluhu Hassan and her predecessor, the late Dr John Pombe Joseph Magufuli for walking the talk that is today seeing our country – a country now talking in completely new transport dimensions.

Despite the great refreshing experience we enjoyed during the trip, though, there were some glitches observed that I wish to highlight for the attention of the operator (Tanzania Railways Corporation) and all those charged with authority over SGR management.

The aim here is to ensure the services provided by the SGR eventually prove unmatched by conforming to the best international standards possible.

By rectifying the glitches spotted, we would guarantee continuous improvements and better customer experience for all passengers – maybe, even including those escorting or receiving passengers.

I would like to start with what I observed as a process which would-be passengers who were buying tickets on cash basis had to follow.

Though I had my own tickets accessed electronically (great experience), at the station I saw three different lines for the process – one for those registering for the booking, a second for those receiving the control number and the last was for those actually being issued with tickets. I seriously think something ought to be done to streamline this process.

Then there was an issue with the number and level of security checks and their details. In Morogoro, for example, after our bags were scanned, we were required to test each liquid found in the bags – e.g. perfumes, body sprays and lotions by actually applying them on our bodies.

Fancy this scenario: a family of six people travelling together – meaning at least six bags each with such materials. This caused unnecessary disturbance to us personally and, by and large, to rest of the passengers.

Another part was with respect to the verification of tickets. Seemingly, printed tickets were no longer allowed unless one had a specific TRC-issued printout.

My understanding was that the system uses QR code technology that is read by operator’s system from passengers’ ticket, be they physical or electronic. I thought the matter is for the code to be read, regardless of where the code was hosted.

So, while I wanted to scan my tickets from printed papers, the officer with the scanner would not have any of that and insisted that I needed to have a specific printout from the operator.

After some minutes of trying to come to some form of consensus, the officer allowed me to scan the tickets in my hands from my mobile phone. But he still made his stance clear: that, after I had done so, I should hand over my paper tickets.

When I asked for the reason, he said having both a paper ticket and an electronic ticket at the same time for the same trip would be tantamount to travelling on two tickets – which was simply not permissible.

This particular aspect remains difficult for me to comprehend to this day, that is, up to this very day as I share my experience in the form of reported speech.

The story goes on… Several TRC officers stood by with appliances like pliers. Those of you who remember the train/ship ticket verifiers or “checkers” must be knowing or remembering these tools) in their hands to perforate the paper tickets to ensure the same are not reused.

Of course, this takes unnecessarily long time. My own thinking is that if the tickets were to be scanned beforehand, before passengers are actually on board the train, this process would be entirely unnecessary.

Last in the list for this article is the issue of passage clogging at the final destinations – as they are commonly known as, that is, at the very end when every passenger wants to quickly get off the train while fast outpacing all others along the way.

My wish here is to take a lesson by borrowing a leaf from a neighbouring country’s domestic airline (JumboJet) where, whenever one reaches one’s destination, the crew would announce the disembarking procedure by observing the order of the sitting lines. In so doing, the rush and clogging at the exit is finely pre-empted.

Should this make sense, I humbly request TRC authorities to consider engaging a similar modality that would lead to seamless disembarking. If possible, something close to this could be done in respect of boarding passengers as well.

There are several other experiences pointing to the need to keep TRC service staff properly empowered through training, especially in customer service areas.

To conclude this short narrative on my experience with regard to modern railway transportation in our country, I wish to advise TRC authorities to consider concentrating their focus around core business streams.

To me, these include transportation and the corresponding infrastructure development and improvement of the rail-line, engines, wagons and passenger stations, while outsourcing all other auxiliary services such as catering, cleaning and on-route healthcare.

With these services outsourced, TRC would formulate service level agreements or key performance indicators (KPIs) with providers to monitor their performance, chiefly to ensure continuous performance quality assurance and improved service delivery.

Ideally, as we strive for private-public partnerships, we should not fall back into the era where an entity would strive to do it all by itself, as this has proved to be a wrong approach and a deterrence to efficiency and productivity.

That said, I am still optimistic and confident that things will move to greater highs given the current relentless ongoing efforts by the government and expectations that enhanced innovation and the deployment of state-of-the-art technology will drive change, with digitalisation key to enhancing customer experience.

However, we also need to be ever vigilant vis-à-vis passengers and other people who may be harbouring disruptive intentions. This ought to be taken on a priority basis.

* A certified International Financial Market practitioner, George Rwezaura Shumbusho is CEO of Tanzania Securities Limited. He is reachable at [email protected] and +255 713 280 778.