Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 32

4.3.2.      Issue 2 – Fragmentation of responsibilities and inter-agency co-ordination - managing and co-ordinating the traffic system is a complex task.  In some cities, there is “no agency that is specifically responsible for traffic management planning and design” and “the meaning of the term traffic management is undefined and its status is low” ^[6].

4.3.3.      Where traffic management agencies exist, they are often under resourced and lack adequate powers to initiate policy implement comprehensive schemes and these aspects are discussed in following “issues”.  However, even if a traffic management agency does exist its remit is often compromised by the large number of other agencies with some involvement in traffic matters, typically,

a)  the city highways agency with responsibility for roads;

b)  the traffic police with responsibility for enforcement of traffic regulations and in many cases for “basic” traffic engineering (signs, markings, street parking, circulation etc);

c)  state or national highway agencies if national or federal roads are involved;

d)  bus and para-transit operators;

e)  the public transport regulatory agency;

f)  private transport operators and associations (trucks, taxis, para-transit etc);

g)  the strategic transport - land use planning and development control agencies;

h)  many non-governmental organisations; and

i)  special agencies - for example, in Bogota, the telephone company is responsible for traffic signals.

4.3.4.      In many cities, the boundaries of these responsibilities are neither clearly defined nor are there mechanisms for co-ordination between the agencies and this can lead to:

a)  protracted periods for scheme implementation as agencies try to reach consensus;

b)  abandonment of schemes due to failure to reconcile the views of different agencies;

c)  fundamental differences of view on traffic policy (in particular, this can arise between “traffic planners” and “traffic police”) and thus failure to develop policies to deal with traffic issues

d)  unilateral action by one agency (typically a road building agency with its propensity for road expansion at any price) which can undermine the objectives of a traffic management agency attempting to balance demand and supply and to favour most efficient modes.

4.3.5.      There are also jurisdictional responsibility and legal issues for roads and traffic. Typical problems include:

a)  in some large cities, traffic is the responsibility of a number of constituent local or municipal governments.  With increasing trends towards local accountability, local municipalities are being allocated more responsibility and in a large city, coordination of traffic policy and agreements between local councils can be difficult;

b)  urban development overwhelms previously workable arrangements; for example, two previously separate cities become more-or-less contiguous but transport planning remains separated (e.g. Lima and Callao in Peru and, although there have been recent changes, between the Government of the Federal District of Mexico City and the surrounding State of Mexico); and

c)  national government retains responsibility and funding arrangements for the most important roads in a city but may have a lesser interest in road based public transport and lack of concern for local transport issues;

d)  lack of clarity between "state" and "municipal" governments over their respective levels of responsibility for traffic matters.