Over a million people are directly or indirectly employed in the transport and logistics sector, he told a public forum on the government's draft national transport policy.

It was organised by the Pathfinder Foundation, a non-partisan, research and advocacy institute in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport.

Bandara said there were many reasons to worry about the state of transport in the island.

"It is unreliable, uncomfortable, with high vehicle operating cost, much time and energy lost due to delays and traffic congestion, with deteriorating road safety standards."

He said an overall national transport policy might help to improve the present lack of co-ordination among the different transport ministries and agencies.

Sri Lanka has separate ministries for land, sea and air transport. It also has different agencies handling different functions within the same mode of transport such as a road development authority and a state-run bus service.

This surfeit of agencies and lack of co-ordination among them has been blamed by the industry as a key reason for the delay in improving the island's transport and logistics services with the aim of positioning it as a hub for the region.

Colombo port is already a shipping hub for south Asia but it still lacks effective links with air and land transport.

"There's a lack of co-ordination in transport," Bandara said. "For instance, roads are not talking to buses. This disintegration of transport functions has led to problems."

Although ports and aviation are under one minister, they were actually two separate ministries with different policies.

"There are two policies for the same ministry - ports and aviation. They should be within the context of one national policy," Bandara said.

"Why things are not moving is because integration is not there . . because of the existence of multiple agencies responsible for different sectors of transport systems and poor co-ordination among them.

"What we need to do is try and get proper co-ordination among these agencies. A national transport makes it easier."

Bandara said there were also inefficiencies in freight transport and no attempt to promote inter-modalism in travel choice - integration between different modes.

"If integration is not there we will have a draft national transport policy for ever," Bandara said.