Karachi’s only traffic accident data compilation project shuts down

The project collected figures of injuries to research causes of accidents in Karachi

KARACHI: The Road Traffic Injury Research and Prevention Programme (RTIRPP) was the only programme through which data regarding road traffic accidents in Karachi was collected but now that the programme has been shut down.

Any accidents that occur in the city now will not be compiled into a collective data package. The programme is being shut down due to lack of funding.

Dr Rashid Jooma, a neurosurgeon at the Aga Khan University Hospital, began the programme in 2006 and worked without government help ever since.

When Dr Jooma first started the project he collected data from five hospitals in Karachi – the Aga Khan University Hospital, Liaquat National Hospital, Civil Hospital Karachi, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.



According to Dr Jooma, there is no collective compilation of traffic accident data in the country. We raised our voices on every forum but the Sindh government was not interested in compiling the data.  "In Karachi dozens of pedestrian bridges are built in technically incorrect manners and directions as they are far from bus stops, which is why pedestrians do not use them. This is a main cause of traffic accidents in Karachi,” he explained.

He told Express News that not only was he compiling figures of road traffic accidents, he was using the data to research the main causes of such accidents.

According to a former employee of the programme, road traffic engineering in Pakistan's biggest city has not received any importance, which is why the RTIRPP has been shut down - due to lack of funds as well as lack of interest of the authorities.

According to Dr Jooma, he is not interested in starting the project again in the future, all he can do is share his experience if the provincial government ever decides to restart the data collection process. He said now that the Asian Development Bank has given the Sindh government a loan to construct security corridors on highways, we can hope that the government will look into this project in the future.



According to Dr Seemin Jamali, executive director at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, the hospital is treating 200 patients daily who are injured in traffic accidents. She said the collection of traffic accident data at the hospital is our responsibility, but said Dr Jooma’s programme was a major project for the betterment of traffic issues in the city. Now the project has been shut down, and there is no one in the city to compile data of road traffic accidents, she said, urging the government to play its part to create a department that can collect data from all hospital in the city, both public and private.