The post by ICTPost has raised a
number of important issues regarding traffic and productivity. Since my return
from South Korea a couple of months ago I feel a dip in my productivity; much
of it
due to traffic congestion (and the associated stress) in
Accra. Even though Seoul is a much bigger, faster and more stressful city than
Accra one does not get stressed out to the extent of being fatigued or
unnecessarily delayed due to traffic. One thing I noticed about the
roads in Korean cities is that they do not use concrete pavements to
separate lanes of roads feeding traffic to the Central Business Area. Instead
they just use the markings. This sort of design makes it possible to
dynamically manage lanes and worth considering in the design of our CBA feeder
roads.
With the aid of traffic lights, Dynamic Lane Management
makes it possible to increase the number of lanes (hence increase the flow of
traffic) in the direction where traffic is heavy (e.g. traffic to the Central
Business Area of Accra in the morning) and decrease the number of lanes in the
direction where traffic is less heavy (e.g. traffic out of Central Business
Area of Accra in the morning).
Still, on lane management our commuters seem not to know the
significance of the outer and inner lanes. In some jurisdictions it is an
offence for a private vehicle to use the outer lane; a preserve for public
transport. While the outer lane is for public transport, the inner lane is
supposed to be a speed lane. These provisions are not observed by commuters on
our roads. Moreover, in some jurisdictions the speed lane can only be used by a
private vehicle when there are 3 or more passengers in it. (e.g. South Korea). That
leaves only the middle lane(s) for private vehicles carrying only one
passenger.
Besides, lane management one other way of managing flow and
traffic congestion is Telecommuting. If 50% of employee (public as well as
private sector) who ride in private transport to work, telecommute to work
we would be reducing traffic by 50%. This is feasible in the near future, given
the investment in broadband and the national fibre backbone. What we need to do
is to encourage (through regulatory and legislative provisions)
real estate developers as well as telecom providers to extend fibre
to the homes (FTTH). If the one million homes Government is trying to build,
come network ready with fibre connectivity to the national back bone we should
be in a position to telecommute interactively - with Multimedia features.
Still from the technology perspective, almost all Korean
vehicles have navigators with GPS mounted on them. With these technology one
can make inform decision regarding the shortest route to a destination, and the
traffic landscape.
One other thing I noticed in South Korea is that the
Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are not all located in the capital
(Seoul). Some of the MDAs are in Daejeon; a city about 300Km from Seoul. Even
though this arrangement may have been motivated by security reasons - the
closeness of Seoul to North Korea, as a side effect it diverts some traffic
from Seoul. Ghana may not be at war with her neighbours, but I think for
security as well as for traffic management reasons we should also consider relocating
some of the important government establishments/agencies to places outside
Accra. In this day and age of ICTs the geographical location of an
entity/establishment does not matter if the appropriate infrastructure and
systems are put in place. Besides, do we ever factor the location of important
establishments/entities in our Contingency and Disaster Planning? Do we
ever consider the effects of Tsunami on the Central Business Area and for that
matter on Government Business? All the important establishments are located on
High Street or close to the sea - The Caste (Seat of Government), The
Indece Square, The Accra Stadium, The Arts Centre, The Kwame
Nkrumah Mausoleum, The Bank of Ghana, The Ministries, The Courts, The
National Library, SFO, CHRAG, The National Lotteries, The National Theatre, The
Science Museum, The State House and Parliament, etc Relocating some or
all of these entities outside Accra - e.g. towards Dodowa, if not in another
city, would not only secure them from the effects of a Tsunami, but I guess
would also divert 50% of the traffic from Accra.
And while I was in Norway in the 90s I also observed that a
ring 10km from the Central Business Area was constructed around
the city I lived in. At the ring Car parks were built and all private vehicles
were made to park at the ring and the occupants were made to take public
transport - trams and buses. A heavy fine was imposed on those private
commuters who wanted to ride in their vehicles into the city. Meanwhile, at the
periphery of the city were malls hosting all the shops one can find at the
central business area (CBA). But the good thing about shopping in those malls
is that the goods there were cheaper than the same goods in the sister shops at
the CBA. I guess such an arrangement could constitute part of the solutions to
traffic management. We need to have malls, good schools, hospitals/polyclinics
etc at the periphery of Accra - e.g Dansoman, Adenta, Sarkumono, Taifa etc
The message being put across here is that Over-Concentration
is the cause of traffic in our cities. We would succeed in managing the traffic
if we free the CBA of some of the establishments and provide some incentives
for staying at the periphery or institute some penalties for wanting to do
business at the CBA.
By Dr. Mohammed-Sani Abdulai
Director of Research (AITI-KACE)
