Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 39

b)  .the independence of traffic police from the city traffic administration and their powers and ability to act in a uni-lateral manner.  In some cities, traffic police have powers to introduce traffic measures without reference to other agencies and as such can undermine traffic strategy.  On the other hand, it must be said that in some cities, the traffic police is the only agency ready to take action to resolve serious traffic issues (such as the installation of median strips in Colombo to prevent crossing traffic-accidents);

c)  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; and

d)  the resistance of traffic police to any outside interference in their organisation, command structures, working practices etc by civil traffic organisation.

4.6.2.      Clearly, traffic management measures should be made as “self enforcing” as practicable.  There are obvious traffic measures which require little enforcement (such as one way streets although not even these are free from abuse) but compliance with other regulations depends largely on drivers’ perception of risk and the implications of being subject to enforcement action.  Road signing and marking should direct drivers clearly and where possible schemes should be as close to “self enforcing” as practicable.  Schemes should “design out” the ability and inclination for drivers to commit traffic offences and example might include:

♦            strong direction of traffic through physical measures (channelisation, physical dividers between bus and traffic streams for bus priority measures, etc) to prevent prohibited movements;

♦            guard-rails-barriers to discourage illegal parking at kerbsides;

♦           traffic calming on local roads to limit speeds;

4.6.3.      Nevertheless, if traffic management is to be successful and is to become increasingly

sophisticated (for example the use of time based schemes such as peak hour bus lanes or selective vehicle prohibitions such a routes prohibited to goods vehicles have much to offer in developing cities if they can be made to work) then the traffic police must be involved, although not responsible for, traffic management development to ensure schemes are potentially "enforceable.  For this participation to be effective, police must be better able to understand traffic matters and this involves improved training and better promotion of traffic management by city authorities to traffic police and the approach to training is discussed in Chapter 5.

4.6.4.      . Traffic management has become a discipline in its own right and requires an organisational structure to ensure that the best can be obtained from that discipline; a professional "traffic management agency" is needed to develop traffic strategy, initiate, plan and design schemes and policies and so on.   It is vital that traffic police are involved in this process since the police will be responsible for the enforcement of traffic regulations on which most schemes depend.   Nevertheless, the traffic police responsibilities, as opposed to involvement, in traffic management should be confined to traffic regulation enforcement^[10] and accident reporting (see Chapter 6).

4.6.5.      The Bank’s “Institution Building for Traffic Management” paper suggested that a “middle path” should be followed where responsibilities in over-lapping areas should be shared.  In general terms, there is a need for good co-operation between police and traffic management agency but there should be few over-lapping areas.   .  The one area where conflicts have occurred in many cities is the  ownership and operation of computer controlled traffic signals system (Area Traffic Control - ATC).  In some cities, total responsibility rests with the traffic police or has been assumed since there are no traffic management agencies to take on the role (e.g. Mumbai).  ATC is part of the traffic management system and prime responsibility for ownership, design and operation should rest with the traffic authority; the traffic police should play an “advice and assistance” role and be able to intervene in emergency situations..