Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 8

Bank traffic projects and poverty - Trafficcomponents of Bank projects are generally consistent with a "poverty approach" as most include measures for buses, pedestrians and to a lesser extent, bicycles/non motorized transport (NMT).  However, in the context of a city, the components are often relatively small in scope.  While the measures themselves are very worthwhile and can demonstrate the advantages of good traffic management, the key Bank role in the context of poverty impact, and in traffic management generally, should be to promote the overall case for traffic management and to seek policy agreements on a comprehensive approach in which busespedestrians and where appropriate NMT is at the forefront of traffic strategy.

Evaluation - traffic management schemes usually result in high economic rates of return when assessed on a conventional basis.  To ensure that schemes are "people " and not "vehicle " orientated, and that poverty impacts are included as a valid part of the assessment, evaluations should include changes in person time costs.  Even then, there are measures which are difficult to assess by conventional economic means - notably bicycle and pedestrian schemes (although many of the latter are often justified on reduction of accidents alone) and a more comprehensive, objective lead evaluation framework approach should be considered and the Review presents suggestions.

Traffic Management in Bank Projects

Experience in developed and well managed developing cities shows that traffic management:

♦       is an essential element of any city transport strategy

♦       is fundamental to realise the potential of more costly transport infrastructure and system investments; and

♦       costs are small and the benefits are exceptionally high.

It is axiomatic that a development agency such as the World Bank or DfID should support traffic management.  Nevertheless, there have been problems in implementation.  Important issues to be overcome include long implementation periods; lack of ownership; little public involvement; limited project scope; little monitoring and most importantly, lack of sustainability institutional arrangements.  It is difficult to recommend generally applicable actions to overcome these issues since traffic management is highly city specific.  However, key areas which need to be addressed in Bank projects and to which greater project attention is needed include:

Institutional arrangements - projects should ensure that there is a capable traffic agency in place or being created, an appropriate institutional framework within which the agency can work and adequate funding for the agency to deal with traffic management on a continuous and sustainable basis.

Project scope - traffic management projects should aim not just for implementation of simple measures, but should aim to establish traffic management as a sustainable part of city transport strategy.  Despite the difficulties, traffic management projects should deal with institutional arrangements and polices which are wider in scope than the "project" and form the foundation for a sustainable traffic management system;

Implementation period - cases have existed where traffic management components designed during project preparation are outdated before implementation due to protracted periods of project and loan processing.  A more programmatic approach to traffic management components should be considered with loan funds allocated to "traffic management programs" and not defined schemes.  Not only does this allow schemes to be developed which are responsive to current traffic conditions but it also provides an opportunity for the traffic management agency to become established and credible by designing and implementing schemes.  Some traffic projects are moving in this direction.  It accepted that more supervision would be needed but the possibility should be investigated to contract this supervision to the private sector as part of the project;