TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

The specific traffic challenges LAMATA was created to address include:

Traffic demand and supply

Immediately after the economic boom of the 1970s and early 1980s, adverse macro-economic conditions have reduced the affordability of motor cars and passenger vehicles. Lagos has therefore witnessed in the last one and a half decades a phenomenal increase in passenger traffic and a paradoxical reduction in the number and caliber of passenger vehicles.

Sector Management

Many of the observed shortcomings in the traffic system of Lagos stem from  management weaknesses. These include

• the absence of a well articulated and adopted policy and strategic framework for the traffic management

• fragmentation and duplication of institutional responsibilities among various agencies at all levels of government

• lack of inter-agency coordination among these various bodies and

• absence of standard procedures for the technical and economic evaluation of programmes and projects.

Road network density and efficiency

The road network density of Lagos, put at 0.4 kilometres per 1000 population, is low, even by the standards of other African cities. And the network’s efficiency is similarly low, with a limited number of primary corridors carrying the bulk of the traffic. Inadequately designed interchanges, where they exist at all, provide only partial access to the primary network. Many tertiary roads play the roles of secondary ones, few junctions are signalised while poor drainage infrastructure combine with drainage clogging with refuse to make roads impassable during the rainy season.


Parking Spaces

Provision and control of parking is ad-hoc in nature while demand in terms of space and time far outstrips supply. Off-street parking spaces are few and the charges low, often incommensurate with the duration. On-street parking is the common feature even in the central business districts of Lagos Island and Ikeja, and is virtually free.

Road Safety

This is a major concern as virtually all roads are unsafe in one way or the other. Rudimentary driver training, poor driver behaviour, unsafe vehicle conditions, uneven road conditions, poor street lighting, lack of pedestrian facilities and poor traffic enforcement all combine to produce an accident rate that is probably among the highest in the world.