Making more motorable the constricted portion on Kara Bridge, inward Lagos, could end the traffic gridlock being experienced on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Transportation Specialist ADEOLU DINA proffers a solution that could rid the road of gridlock as the project, expected to be delivered by December, enters its final lap.
Road rehabilitation and reconstruction is a reoccurring activity in human space, where such infrastructure has deteriorated. Either way, the two challenges often result in poor processing of vehicular traffic, resulting in a traffic hold-up.
Today, monitoring and deploying solutions to traffic-related challenges is now exclusively domiciled with transport planners, a specialised profession that is only recently recognised in Nigeria’s public service.
The disruptive effect of road rehabilitation and reconstruction on traffic can be enormous and traumatic, especially when such roads process heavy volume of vehicles. Such roads, to this end, require careful planning to minimise delays and the high cost associated with congestion. These costs, quantifiable and otherwise, often manifest in the form of loss of man-hours, stress on road users, higher fuel consumption, and heavy pollution, among others.
It is in light of the foregoing that stakeholders are often required to share expertise and experience in preventing or resolving problems associated with traffic flow. As an academic, one, therefore, constrained to proffer as a form of community service, expertise, to find a lasting solution to the gridlock in the Kara area inward Lagos on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
The suggested solutions could be further applied to other road works having existing traffic flow within the state and in the country.
Oldest Expressway
The 127-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is, perhaps, Nigeria’s oldest expressway. It was inaugurated in 1978 by the Olusegun Obasanjo-led military administration. The road was built to facilitate the movement of vehicular traffic in large volumes between Lagos and other regions of Nigeria.
Individuals in their late 50s and above who drove on this road in their early years have shared common tale of driving from the old toll gate in Lagos (around the 7Up area) to the Ibadan toll gate in 45 minutes.
Arising from the phenomenal growth of Lagos, the lack of alternative routing and travel modes into the state, the design capacity for the road had for long been exceeded, so much as the life span of the road infrastructure as of 1999.
Furthermore, new towns have also emerged along the stretch of expressway occasioned by the Lagos sprawl. This further complicated the vehicular traffic demand placed on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in recent decades.
A significant reduction in the average vehicular speed had for long been experienced together with increased vehicular density on the road. The occurrence of intermittent illegal bus stops and illegal pedestrian crossings that sprouted over time between the Lagos and Sagamu section of the road was not part of the original design. In other words, 20 years after its construction, this roadway had by far exceeded its designed capacity for its traffic as originally designed.
From 2000, it had become very pertinent for the road infrastructure to be upgraded for it to function in line with the new demands placed on it.
It is noteworthy that the effort to reconstruct the expressway was first initiated under the civil administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo as a Build Operate Transfer (BoT) Scheme with an elaborate 10-lane expressway design. This contract was later re-awarded and the Jonathan administration kicked off its reconstruction in July 2013.
Since the commencement of the reconstruction, commuters and travelers using the road have suffered untold hardship due to intermittent diversions by the contractor. However, the most intense traffic snarl resulting from these diversions was more intense between Sagamu and Lagos sections of the road. As the construction winds down, the recent and the last set of diversions created around the Kara Bridge by the contractor have resonated with the previous hardship encountered on the road.
Curious gridlock
Curious observers would by now have observed that the problem around the diversions at Kara is only compounded inward Lagos. Any discerning mind should be curious about the difference exhibited by traffic on either side of the road. The current daily recurring hold encountered on one side of the road is excruciating and exerts a heavy toll on the lives and economy of road users. This is despite the assurances by government authorities on the measures put in place to ensure the ease of traffic flow around the construction zones. This perceived constriction is what this piece seeks to help unravel as we proffer professional solution to the challenge of the traffic gridlock in Kara.
The objective is two folds: the first, analyse the reasons for the excruciating traffic congestion at Kara, and the other, to suggest a policy framework for government to adopt that will help forestall a future reoccurrence of gridlocks during similar road works.
The Queue Theory
All the discussions, explanations, and solutions suggested in this article are based on the Queue Theory. It offers a fantastic means of explaining the problem that created the current traffic situation for the public to understand without delving into any scientific jargon.
Just for enlightenment, the Queuing Theory was introduced in the early 20th century by a Danish mathematician who wanted to analyse and optimise telephone operations in one of the European countries. Today scientists have largely expanded the operation of this model due to its relevance. The theory is concerned with studying the dynamics of any queue system and how it can be made to operate more efficiently. Four components of the Theory are important for our explanation, these are Arrival at the queue system, The queue, The Service process, and Exit from the queue system. These four components are discussed in their hierarchy of importance as a contributing factor to the traffic gridlock inward Lagos.
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The Service Area
The service area is the most important in any queue system and will likely determine the length of any resulting queue. Have you ever wondered why a supermarket cashier who is slow in processing payment ends up with a queue of customers? The answer is simple. That is how the service pace affects queue or in this case vehicular traffic. The service area in the case at hand is the stretch of constricted road portion from the end of the Long Bridge to the Kara Bridge. Casual observation of the section of the work area by Julius Berger Construction Company showed they often create a one-kilometer work section for each team. This one-and-half lane constriction represents the cashier in this case or vehicles’ service area and the most important problem causing the traffic gridlock.
So what has Julius Barger and the authorities omitted in this service area? Ordinarily, one could have said the service area of 1km is too long to process the heavy traffic inflow in the morning and evening peak periods of this expressway. This long stretch of service area ensures prolonged presence within the service area. This problem is further compounded by a series of bad road portions within this service area, particularly the right-hand side of the two lanes (inward Lagos). This section has several potholes that inhibit the smooth flow of vehicles within this service area. This leaves tail-spin traffic, resulting in a traffic hold-up from a portion that should have been made to flow freely. Now recall my earlier example of a cashier holding up a queue of people waiting to pay in a supermarket. An unnecessarily slow cashier will hold up the queue longer than necessary. The rate of service is critical to the resulting queue behind. If it is at a peak period for sales, a very long queue will emerge because the service area cannot process the queue faster than people arriving at it. I will further buttress my point using two other examples. The long queue of people waiting to pay their last respect to the late Queen of England stretched for about an estimated eight kilometres with a sixteen-hour waiting time. Two lines were created to allow quicker processing of this human traffic. The traffic could have been quickly processed if people in the queue did not pause to bow and “salute” the late Queen a process which takes a few seconds to complete. This was frequent among those queuing, the result is a slow-paced queue with people held up in line. Another example that further affirms this position, is the less intense traffic outward Lagos on the other side of the construction area. The same system with the same length of constriction, however, due to its smooth road portion, traffic is quickly processed at a rate much faster than inward Lagos. The resulting queue is more tolerable. Lastly, when approaching the third bridge outward Lagos, a similar constriction was made by the construction company, this time a single lane; I have not observed any hold-up at this point in the morning, although in the evening, I expect a little traffic but not one that is intolerable. This is because the constricted portion is fully tarred and also rapidly processes vehicular traffic moving through it. Further to say again, that the other constricted portion inward Lagos about 2-3km after the Kara Bridge just after Berger Bridge, despite being constricted into single lane traffic and having more than 90percent of the Kara traffic is still able to process vehicles much more speedily. The resulting traffic does not induce as much hardship on travelers and commuters alike like the Kara section.
So what can be done to correct the problem at Kara? This is simple, authorities should impress it on the construction giant to perform a palliative correction on the bad portion within the constricted area of their work zone at Kara so that vehicles can move seamlessly within it. If possible, trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles should be encouraged to use the left lane of this section which has a hard surface, to reduce the traffic drag within the constricted zone. Such vehicles are slower, have higher lane occupancy, and can induce a drag within the traffic system when they have to move slower than necessary.
Arrival at the Queue
The rate of arrival is yet another important problem. The traffic inward Lagos exhibits two peak arrivals, in the morning and evenings. At these times, arrival, the rate at which vehicles enter the traffic or queue over time, is the highest and can escalate the traffic scenario into a major gridlock where the service area is not optimized. Unfortunately, there is little that can be done to manage this component by relevant authorities owing to the near absence of alternative routes entering Lagos; these alternative routes are in a deplorable state and unable to divert traffic away from the A1 expressway.
Exit from the system
The third most important problem here is exiting the service area. How the queue is exited and the rate at which they do so depends on how the service area processes traffic. However, it has been observed that public transport service providers often park at the service’s exit or constrict areas for their passengers to disembark. This bunch of recalcitrant drivers made up of interstate and commuter service providers further impede the flow on the right lane of the constricted portion. The effect is frequent but temporal competition for an exit from the queue, thereby compounding the already compromised efficacy of the service area constricted to accommodate road reconstruction by the construction giant. The result is slower processing of traffic within the system with longer traffic as currently exhibited entering Lagos. While this point is sometimes manned in the morning peak, the same cannot be said during the evening peak. Unfortunately, law enforcement agencies and men of state traffic management agencies TRACE and LASTMA, for Ogun and Lagos respectively, are often absent at this point in the evening peak. Enforcement agencies must make efforts to have this point manned at all times. These men must operate in shifts to avoid excessive fatigue and abandonment of this spot.
The Queue Process
Ordinarily, the component should not enjoin much discussion because the queue length is a consequence of the rate at which the service area can process traffic and the rate at which vehicles arrive at the system. Where the former is inefficient, the result is the queue or long stretch of hold-up we see on the roadways. However, there is a dimension in the behavioral context of driving in Nigeria that influences the system’s efficiency that must be explained. Vehicles often arrive at the queue on a three-lane structure, resulting from the reconstruction and expansion work created by the engineering company. Lack of lane discipline among drivers immediately dissolves the original structure into four-lane and later a five-lane system. The chaotic movement outlook often results in unnecessary competition among all categories of drivers in the traffic. The result is frequent lane changes, aggressive driving, and sometimes accidents aggravating the hold-up. This system sometimes dissolves into a 6th lane when the “Nigeria’s Landlords” led by their escort parties force their way through traffic. Drivers who wish to take advantage of their dissimulation sustain the presence of the 6th lane, driving recklessly as an extension of the convoy.
There may be no immediate solution to this problem. This behaviour is often vested in the poorly trained drivers on Nigerian roads, the poor traffic culture of our elites, and sense of entitlement of Nigeria’s service personnel in traffic. The effort to dissolve the six lanes created follows a descending order of lane arrangement from six to five, to four, three, and finally, two lanes that can access the constricted service area. The effect of the expansion and contraction of lanes on traffic cannot be over-emphasized. This is so because such lane expansion and contraction are chaotic and further compound traffic flow as drivers struggle between lanes.
Unfortunately, little can be done about this in the immediate and short term. However, with the entry of more learned drivers, one can only hope it will stem the observed behavior. There is also the danger of joining the bad gang as research is unclear if the poor driving attitude is environmentally induced or otherwise.
It is therefore recommended that the different layers of traffic authorities do the following to reduce and avoid future reoccurrence in any part of the country.
” Carry out immediate palliative work within the constricted portion of the kara area inward Lagos in such a manner that bad road portions never impede vehicular flow.
” Ensure traffic agents man the exit of the constricted portion at all times.
” Ensure those manning the exit portion must operate on shift to reduce personnel fatigue and maintain presence morning till evening.
” Certified transport professional viewpoints must be sourced on diversion plans to be put in place by construction companies; such consultancy should also include monitoring the system to identify and control. A wide array of computer-based simulation software is now available that can test the effect of any proposed diversion plans on the traffic systems. This requires a policy frame that will allow such input by transport experts when construction or rehabilitation works are to be undertaken.
Conclusion
The excruciating traffic is the poor engineering palliative put in place by the construction company handling the reconstruction work around the Kara area. The other is the failure of authorities (both federal and state) to properly diagnose the problem. Suffice it to say that the queue or traffic experienced at Kara may not instantly disappear upon the adoption of the above solution; however, there is a strong probability of reducing the average time travelers spend in such traffic by as much as 70%. Most times, this will likely be tolerable for travelers and commuters who have had to spend in recent times between eight to 16 hours or more in the inward Lagos bound traffic gridlock.
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Dina, a Railway Transportation Specialist, is of the Department of Transport Management Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.