The Addis Ababa, Ethiopia City Roads Authority is to establish a traffic management bureau to solve the traffic light problem in the city. The traffic light problem in the city requires more than maintenance services said Fekade Haile Manager of the AACRA.
The new traffic management bureau is expected to carry out an in depth study of the traffic conditions in the city and the role of traffic lights to propose a solution to the existing problems.
The city roads authority cancelled an invitation it had extended for the maintenance and upgrades of the existing traffic light system as recommended by a team South African and Korean experts.The existing traffic light system is made up of manually operated and automatic lights that are outdated and difficult to maintain or upgrade according to the roads authority.
The lights are so outdated that spare parts are no longer being produced by the companies who originally manufactured them said Zewdu Bayeh, traffic safety coordinator and supervisor of ACCRA.
The functional traffic lights prove to be inadequate to the job of handling current traffic levels because they were calibrated for traffic volumes ten years ago explained a source.
The traffic management bureau is expected to run a project to tackle the existing problems said Fekade.
A potential problem in realizing the project is expected to be funding. The authority is currently being funded by the Ethiopian Road Fund which provides the financing for maintaining roads and enacting safety measures.
The fund allocated to the ERF is insufficient to allow the large amounts of capital required for this project according to Fekade.
The money allocated to the authority for projects related to traffic lights this year is 1.2 million. ACCRA is discussing the funding for the project with the Korean and South African teams said Fekade.
Source: Addis Fortune
