The analysis on a serious traffic jam in Dar es Salaam city

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes a serious traffic jam in Dar es Salaam City and the expected solutions to eradicate the severity of the problem in the city so as to make ease traffic flow. The Dar es Salaam public transport has been performing great despite the existing poor infrastructures. For the last decade the traffic jam has been yearly increasing causing many problems to consumers. The affected groups include the private vehicle owners, the commuter bus drivers, taxi drivers, employees from both private sectors and civil servants, students, pedestrians and all other city dwellers. This study has observed that the following issues affected the traffic flow in the city of Dar es Salaam. The first issue is the unlimited influx of vehicles in the city that account for about 62 per cent of the total vehicles countrywide. The second issues is the inadequate quality of infrastructures to cope with the influx of vehicles in the city whereby potholes, sands, narrow roads, inadequate feeder roads and lack of frequent road maintenances give rise to a strict rise of traffic jams in the city. The fourth issue is the location of most services and major activities in the city centre that enforce the city dwellers from peripheral areas to find their desired services in the city centre hence increasing traffic congestion. The study finally recommends that there is a great need for authorities responsible for traffic control that include SUMATRA, traffic police and other stakeholders to act very seriously to resolve the situation because they seem not to fulfill their obligations accordingly. Also the government should reconsider deeply the regulations and principles governing the public transport in the city by taking serious drastic actions to prohibit the private vehicles in the city centre because it is the great cause of traffic jam in the city centre.