Northern Corridor Region to put in place Road Crashes Management System
With forty percent of the total throughput at the Port of Mombasa currently carried out by rail Transport to Nairobi leaving significannt volume of cargo on road transport, by all accounts, road transport still remains the most important means of Transport along the Northern Corridor. Thus the high level of road fatalities still witnessed on the Northern Corridor Road Networks.
Not only Road fatalities present a considerable obstacle to the region’s aspiration to achieving targets of the UN General Assembly Resolution Decade of Action for Road Safety but also hindered the achievement of goals of the 4th EAC Development Strategy which targeted to have the Road related fatalities reduced by 20% by the year 2015 and to harmonize fatality rates with the African road safety performance target which is to reduce the road related fatalities by 50% by 2030.
In the implemententation process of the NCTTCA Policy Organs’ directive on “Improvement of safety in all transport modes” in order to facilitate safer transport across the Northern Corridor region, delegates from Member States gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, from 9th to 11th March 2020, to discuss the harmonisation of measures for International Roughness Index (IRI) data collection and validate the Black spots survey reports carried out along the Corridor Routes in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, agreed among other things to establish a Road Crashes Management System in order to achieve the road safety targets reduce the road related fatalities.
Road Safety has posed one of the major challenges along the Northern Corridor with numerous studies showing that road traffic accidents along the route constitute a significant loss of human lives and property within the region. Road fatalities present a significant impediment to the achievement of some of the key development goals of the East African Community (EAC) such as expansion of health capacities owing to big drain on national resources allocated to health.
TMEA’s Lucy Chetalam urged Member States to prioritize Road Safety in their Infrastructure development and projects in order to reduce Road fatalities.
In Kenya, road crash statistics from the National Transport and Safety Authority show that an average of 3,000 lives are lost annually with thousands more injured from road accidents. The World Health Organisation in its 2015 Global Status Report on Road Safety ranked Kenya’s roads amongst the most dangerous in the world claiming an average of 29.1 lives per 100,000 people. The crashes are mainly attributed to human error as well as other factors such as unsafe road designs, poor condition of vehicles, unsafe road user behaviour, inadequate infrastructure for non-motorized traffic and missing or ineffective road signage.
The Northern Corridor has one hundred and ninety nine (199) black spots in Kenya based on a survey conducted jointly by Safe Way Right Way (SWRW), National transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) and Kenya Police on the Northern Corridor and Nairobi County dated May, 2017.
An inter-agency survey on priority black spots by the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA), KeNHA, National Transport NTSA Kenya Transporters Association (KTA) and the Kenya Traffic Police in March 2019 prioritized the first ten (10) black spots among the thirty (30) ranked from a study by KeNHA undertaken by SMEC consultants to rank Hazardous/Black spots along Northern Corridor in September, 2016.
These priority black spots in Kenya; Mukinya-Migaa-Sobea-Salgaa-Sachangwan; Gitaru- Rungiri; Kibarani-Makupa Causeway; Molem-Nambakana-Nyamasaria-Kasagam; Emali- Pipeline; Bonje; MajiYaChumvi; Konza- Malili; Ngokomi- Kalimbini; and Mlolongo were ranked based on three (3) high crash location identification criteria including crash frequency, crash rate and crash severity and intensity.
In Rwanda, against the projected twenty six (26) predetermined black spots along the main routes of NR-1, NR-2 and NR-3, the team surveyed twenty eight (28) hazardous spots in total having identified two more along Kigali-Katuna route.
A general observation was that all the main roads in Rwanda are in a well-maintained condition with no signs of distressed pavement or failing road shoulders along the routes surveyed. However, there are challenges observed with the road design parameters. Most roads’ lanes have less than generally accepted 3.5m standard. In some cases, road carriageways going as narrow as 6m; two-lane, two-way; against the accepted road shoulder width of 2m according to East African Highway Design Standards.
A rounded number of 750 fatalities per year puts Rwanda at a level of 7 fatalities per 100,000 population and 50 fatalities per 10,000 motor vehicles.
Rwanda scores significantly better than its neighbouring countries which all show figures in the range of 20-30 fatalities per 100,000 population (according to WHO data). Strict enforcement of the use of safety belts in cars and the wearing of helmets by motorcycle drivers and passenger greatly contributes to this better performance without any doubt.
However, in terms of fatalities per 10,000 vehicles, Rwanda has a relatively high incidence of fatalities (50) due to a comparatively small motor vehicle fleet; the score is at the same level as Uganda (also around 50), significantly better than Ethiopia (about 70), but way behind European countries like Netherlands and Sweden.
In Uganda, on average, the Country loses 10 people per day in road traffic crashes, which is the highest level in East Africa. The overall annual cost of road crashes is currently estimated at approximately UGX 4.4 trillion ($1.2 billion), representing 5% of Uganda’s gross domestic product (GDP). Although the country has a robust regulatory transport framework in place, various challenges compromise the implementation of such policies and regulations, leading to inefficient service provision.
The entire country and, in particular, Kampala city, is served by an unregulated public transport system, with most of the vehicles in poor mechanical condition, coupled with poor driving skills that contribute to road crashes. Most vehicles operate largely outside the transport regulatory framework. The use of boda-boda system in the cities and along busy routes has also exacerbated the transport safety.