Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 5

It is regrettable but essential to recognize that in some cities, traffic police corruption in traffic matters such as enforcement of parking and moving traffic offences needs to be addressed.  While improved training, reduction of opportunities for direct payment to police through private sector involvement (e.g. parking enforcement) may assist, this is a wider issue than traffic management.

Training and Human Resources

Successful and sustained traffic management requires adequate numbers of (i) trained professional staff in the “traffic management agency” and (ii) trained traffic police for the enforcement of traffic regulations.

Training for traffic management professionals - many Bank projects have included technical assistance to traffic agencies.  While this technical assistance has often had some training role, there has not been great focus on training nor has there been any known systematic evaluation of training.  The notable and important exceptions were the Mexico Medium Sized Cities and the Venezuela Urban Transport Projects where comprehensive training programs were included and these may serve as models for future projects, subject to evaluation of the successes and issues of the programs.  Within Bank (and similar) projects, there is need to (i) take training “more seriously” and promote training within projects, (ii) consider ways of spreading training outside specific project cities and (iii) develop guidelines for assessment of training needs and the preparation of training components for traffic management

Training for traffic police - traffic schemes should be designed to minimise enforcement effort and to “design out” the ability and inclination for drivers to commit traffic offences. Nevertheless, traffic schemes will always require good enforcement for success.  Many traffic police forces are neither well trained in current methods of traffic management enforcement nor do they appreciate the role and function of traffic management.  Improved and systematic training of traffic police is essential and guidelines are needed for assessment of training needs and preparation of training components for traffic police within projects.

Human Resources - many cities under-estimate and under-provide the staff required for good traffic management as a consequence of (i) general constraints on city finance and staffing, (ii) lack of recognition of the importance of traffic management, (iii) lack of a clearly defined traffic management role for the city and (iv) lack of career structure for traffic management professionals.  In the same way that there are no general guidelines for traffic management measures, there are no general rules for levels of staff.  The range in developing cities varies greatly (in two mega cities of similar size, the range extends from 250 professionals to the clearly inadequate 5 professionals).  To overcome the lack of human resources and it is necessary to provide traffic management with status, career paths and reasonable salaries and the case for “independent traffic companies-institutes”, on the model of Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities is worthy of consideration.  There is also a case for increased contracting out specific traffic management functions and contracting out of all traffic management functions within a city may offer potential; some cities are following this latter approach and more documented experience from these cities is needed.

Traffic Management and Road Safety

A high proportion of traffic accidents occur in urban areas.  A comprehensive urban road safety policy requires a multi-sectoral approach including programs for driver training and testing, education, publicity aimed at selected groups of road users, vehicle roadworthiness testing, securing funds for road safety, community participation, monitoring and research.  Some form of multi-sectoral "Traffic Safety Committee" is required to initiate and co-ordinate safety policies and programs.  While a comprehensive safety program is broader than traffic management alone, traffic management actions are an integral and important part and likely to include: