By 2050 the number of people living in cities can double, as the world population has already exceeded 9 billion, and the number of cars could double from 1 billion today. Now imagine the traffic gridlock in major world cities with so many people and cars. Nigeria has over 190 million people, and commuters in Lagos put so much effort and energy to get to work because of the time consuming traffic congestion that when they are finally at work, they are incapable to do their best due to the road stress. Yes, indeed, it is a common necessity to introduce innovative transport schemes that will transform the way people and products move around. SKY WAY Capital present a modern, high-speed innovative and ecologically sound transportation technology. And it could help move in such densely populated cities like Lagos in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way. Let’s see how it is supposed to work.
– We will be able to find this out this morning from my guests František Solar, who is a member of the SKY WAY CAPITAL Board. Good Morning, František, it is good to have you on the show. And of course we are welcoming Ayodele Adewale, Nigerian partner of SKY WAY CAPITAL, wearing the other cloak today.
– Good morning! Whenever people see you usually, they expect you to be talking about politics, but this it totally different. Very quickly, Mr Solar, could you talk to us about this eco-friendnly transportation, I mean, what exactly are we expected to see with this?
– Thank you for having invited me to your TV. I would like to tell you that this technology is fully innovative, and was invented by Mr Yunitskiy, who started working on it since 1978. It means, we have a lot of experience, developing this technology. We have built the EcoTechoPark close to Minsk: this is a capital city of Belorussia.
– This technology transport has been made, it has been tested, have been through the certification, and is ready for full application in the reality. All right, when ideally in Nigeria, especially Lagos, can it be applied?
– Everyone would say it is time for us to move to another level with traffic: government federal state, local government say they have done everything in their powers to improve the situation, but still cannot overcome it.
– How easy would it be to adopt this technology in a place like Lagos?
– Well, it could be done very easily. If you remember, the Akinwunmi Ambode administration, tried to embark the other means of transportation apart from roads: such as light rail transportation, undergroound. At this point, they are thinking of underground, but it is highly capital intensive. But with this technology, it can be built on the laid up infrastructure that you have already in Lagos. Take for instance, you are moving from Ido all the way down to your station, and in the middle part of your travel, you change to that adopted transport, mounted on the strings, fixed to the supports which are like poles. So, the infrastructure is already there. We are only looking at the government adopting it, it is seamless integration.
– František, is it similar to what I know, in Wuppertal near Dusseldorf in Germany?
– There is something similar.
– Is that the same thing we are talking about?
– So, you think it is ideal in use for the population like Lagos, where the ground is already totally populated. Talk to us about funding. I mean, how is it going to be funded up? As for adoption of the technology: it is very easy, as the technology has a lot of advantages: it is built on the second level, we can build it from 5 metres to 30 metres above the ground. It means we do not need any bridges. We have a variety of transport using this technology, and it is built easily: we do not need many supports construction systems. You can see at the EcoTecnoPark that the distance between two support systems is 400 metres. We do not need a lot of land for building, just some land for the installation of supports. And we can offer this for Lagos, we are able to build 10 km per day, when everything is ready, prepaired. I wonder that the risks will be. But let us come to the issue of funding, that she asked.
– I wonder how expensive this will be? Would the government choose to fund it, or should it just give the approvement of it?
– Well, the government may decide to adopt the technology and make it sole exclusive, knowing whether they are having revenue from it; the people can also get involved in terms of buying share capital, and thus we are making them viable over the years. Either way, it is a win-win situation. What amazes me more, is that technology does not need any external energy source to generate it: the energy is generated from the technology, from vehicle itself, which can power our communities. So, the technology is an eco-friendly thing, we can also win carbon credit from it; it does not pollute the environment. In fact, the street-lights that we have, will be removed and replaced with the poles, and on the poles, we can also put street lights. To the issue of security: if you remember, along the pipelines, there are vandals, so you can place this technology around the pipelines, and every human movement around them will be visible, which also gives us the access to the security check; we can also put security cameras on the tracks. Apart from the benefit for the environment, we can use tracks for tourism, so that the people enjoy the sky views of our landscapes. The tracks can be built over water, 200 metres from the shore, to the ships at sea, and then we do not need a habour to get goods from the ships, and these goods now are transported by container trucks, which dusturb our roads, so we can get them off the roads, and we will not need them and the docks. We can network the whole of Nigeria, even the whole West African coast and all of Africa.
– This will require a lot of steel structures, and Nigeria should provide them for the project, shouldn’t it?
– Unfortunately, though, our Ajaokuta steel complex is very much moribund.
– How are you going to fix this challenge?
– I have also asked this question to our partners, who can come in, and they are ready to establish a factory in Nigeria for processing. They are also ready to go in partnership with cement and concrete manufacturing industries, so it is not only solving our transportation problem, or solving the security problem, it is also going to solve our unemployment problem.
– František, which country, or where else in the world has this technology been deployed?
– First, I should say that we have built the EcoTechnoPark 60 km from Minsk: it is on the 36 hectares, where we have tested, and fully certified the technology. Last month, we started the project in Arabian countries, in Abu Dhabi. We are ready to sign the contact soon with one company in Switzerland. It is in Europe. Two weeks ago we visited Vietnam. They have a big interest to build this technology, and we are going to sign a contact to create a joint venture of our company in Vietnam, and through this company, we will be doing our activities in this country. We presented the technology in Parliament in Vietnam, and they approved the technology: SkyWay can come to Vietnam and build this technology. We will use these steps for the other countries, as well as for Nigeria. We need to find here partners, big and strong partners, start a joint venture company, and through this joint ventre company, do the activities. Of course, we need to involve government as well, a lot of other partners, cotractors for the construction.
– If this were to become a reality, how long would it take from start to end?
– Take for instance to net the whole of Lagos, and we will be looking at everything on board: it could take us about 6 months.
– Wow! Really?
– Because everything is in place, you are only going to drill and pull the strings, the poles are in place. As I said, when everything is in the country and in place. When all the components of the track are ready and in place, it could take only 6 months to install everything. So, then it is the project the billionaires should be falling over themselves with. Not only them, the ordinary people too. We do not have time any more, so, we thank you, František Solar, for participating in the program. In our program, we had František Solar, SKY WAY CAPITAL Board Member.
– Thanks again for coming! Thank you for having invited me. We will be looking forward to the project implementation here with the help of the Nigerian company partner: you, Adewale. When I started talking with one person, I will not name him now, he treated everything sceptically. When he joined and figured things out, he understood how he could benefit from the company.
– Once again, thank you, gentlemen for having come to us. Thank you and all the best.