Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 114

§  ensure that road users comply with traffic regulations so that the traffic system may operate safely and that traffic schemes and policies may meet their objectives

Types of Intervention – Enforcement of traffic regulations is generally the responsibility of the traffic police although some activities, such as enforcement of parking regulations, may be the responsibility of other agencies such as a “parking authority”.  Within Bank projects, components to assist traffic regulation enforcement have comprised:

§  Equipment to assist enforcement actions which may include

§  parking control equipment (tow trucks, wheel locks etc)

§  communications equipment to enable traffic police to manage the traffic system

§  on-street enforcement equipment (patrol cars, motor bicycles etc) § office equipment (pc’s etc) to assist record keeping, tracing offenders etc; § Technical assistance and equipment:

§  for training to the traffic police;

§  to establish accident reporting and analysis procedures;

§  to aid development of appropriate traffic regulations/codes

§  In a limited number of cases, other high tech equipment has been proposed such as speed limit registration (radar) equipment, CCTV with vehicle number plate recognition.

Inclusion in Bank traffic management projects/component – traffic police components have been included in many Bank projects including San Jose (Costa Rica), Cairo (Egypt), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Moscow (Russia) (proposed), Mumbai (India) (proposed), Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)(proposed), Venezuela, Karachi (Pakistan) and Calcutta (India).  There are there are no known evaluations of the components.

Comments and Issues – as noted above, it is desirable that traffic management schemes are made as

“self-enforcing” as possible; the maximum use of physical measures should be included to reduce conflicts (e.g. medians), to direct traffic (e.g. channelisation) and to segregate vehicles (e.g. kerbs to separate traffic and buses in bus priority schemes).  Such measures are not always possible due to problems of available road width and access for residents or servicing and thus “paint and sign” schemes, often relying on time based regulations (e.g. peak and off peak), are required.  In these cases, good enforcement is essential and issues which have occurred include:

§  perspective of traffic management – traffic police often have a different perspective on traffic management than traffic planners.  The main objective traffic police is to “keep traffic moving” particularly traffic on main routes.  However, traffic police are not skilled in achieving a balanced approach to traffic movement.  The difference in approach is demonstrated by:

§  in Bangkok, and perhaps in Manila, traffic police manual intervention in traffic signals control (with the provision of excessively long cycle times) has been contrary to all conventional, efficient signals practice advocated by traffic planners;

§  concentration by traffic police on technical offences and routine traffic policing (such as “licence checking”) rather than rather than on regulating moving traffic

§  lack of interest in pedestrian measures

§  the desire of the traffic police to maintain control over what they perceive as “their functions”.  This applies particularly to traffic signals systems; the integration of traffic police and city traffic authorities can prove difficult;

§  working practices – traffic growth rates in many developing cities is high and the work load and working practices of traffic police need to keep pace with the changes.  Often, working practices are not responsive to the new traffic conditions and fundamental attitudinal changes are required.  The conservative approach of traffic police forces plus the constraints imposed by the current legal requirements mean that changes are not easy to plan nor to implement;