Sustainable action: Solutions to traffic woes highlighted at workshop

Expert from NED University discusses Sindh's urban transport policy

KARACHI: Policy has no worth without action, and action is useless without policy.

This was stated by Dr Mir Shabbar Ali, head of the urban and infrastructure department at NED University, while speaking on Sindh's urban transport policy at a workshop on Tuesday. Both policy and action, according to Ali, have to go together.

Talking about the province's urban transport issues, the expert said the policy majorly focuses on urban areas with a population of one million or above, projected as of 2014.

Interestingly, demographic surveys for Sindh, according to him, showed that in 2011, about 36 per cent of Sindh's total population was living in Karachi. This, he said, has augmented the port city's transportation woes.

"Poor traffic management has resulted in increased congestion, travel time, emissions and fuel wastage," he said, adding that the reason for most road accidents was mismanagement of traffic, encroachment of road space and presence of different types of vehicles on the road.

Institutional barriers have further spoiled the city's transport, said Ali, explaining that an earlier NED survey had revealed the existence of multiple departments performing similar duties related to transportation.



Departments such as the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), National Highways and Motorway Police, Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan, and Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority have to be brought under one umbrella and their roles needed to be appropriately defined, he further suggested.

Moreover, Ali said the various laws on motor vehicles and traffic need to be strengthened to cater to the recent transport regime. "The restructuring of traffic police is needed on modern grounds," he insisted.

Ali termed the Traffic Engineering Bureaus (TEBs) at the metropolitan level as very important, saying they must perform functions as specified in the Karachi Division (traffic engineering) Act, 1985.

He said the database of different studies relating to transport needed to be revised on a five-year basis. "A centralised database for storing all transport-related information under TEBs must be established," he suggested.

Talking about town planning, he said educational and shopping areas must be planned according to their transportation needs. On the allocation of road spaces, Ali said priority has to be given to expansion and improvement of roads where congestion is becoming severe.

The expert also called for strict implementation of SBCA's building bylaws to improve parking facilities. He also suggested an increase in the allocated seats for women in public buses and vans to 30 per cent.

Ali was also in favour of promoting non-motorised travelling, and called for construction and revamping of cycle tracks and pedestrian paths.

Talking about the transport policy, he said it has been divided into 15 key areas: transport administration, travel inventory, land use and transport planning, transport operations, safety and security, allocation of road space, parking facilities, provisions for women, provisions for pedestrian, provisions for students, provisions for senior citizens and handicapped, urban transport database, private sector investments, human resource and capacity development, public awareness and communication, environmental sustainability  and technological advancement.

The inter-cities' provincial or national highways or connections, inter-cities' rail-based transportation, other non-road transportation sources including aircrafts, ships, boats, pipelines for transportation of liquid fuels, lubricants and gases and the air transport between cities and sea transport has been kept out of the urban policy's domain, he informed.

The workshop, titled Sustainable Urban Transport Policy and Transport/Traffic Management Issues, was organised by the Pakistan Sustainable Transport Project.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th,  2015.