Chaos in Colombo and how it could have been avoided

By Lakwimashi Perera

The uni-flow system of traffic, which was implemented recently, has turned the streets of Colombo into a series of one way roads, bringing its own set of headaches for commuters travelling in and out of the city.

While the new system has apparently made life easier for those who travel using private vehicles, it has failed to include the interests of commuters by bus and pedestrians.

Colombo’s roads underwent a major upheaval with centre-medians being dismantled and roundabouts being made smaller to accommodate the new system. Bus routes are in disarray and passengers have to travel long distances onfoot to catch connecting buses.

Add to that the plight of the pedestrians who have been robbed of the centre medians where they took refuge when crossing roads are almost always busy with traffic. This system shrieks of the “act-first, think-later” attitude of the local decision makers. Enforced haphazardly, the system seems to have been implemented without the input of experts in the field who have the expertise and the technology to simulate these conditions on their computers and obtain the most favourable system for our roads.

The Sunday Times FT got a chance to visit the University of Moratuwa and meet with Professor. Amal Kumarage of the Department of Civil Engineering, a national consultant for traffic in the Maldives to see what facilities were available. Showing us around the laboratory, he pointed out to computers that could simulate conditions on our roads. He said the university had developed its own software to meet local needs.

“There are similar tools developed by different people in different parts of the world. We prefer to use our own as most of what is available in the market is from developed countries where the conditions are very different. We have to make a lot of assumptions if we use them,” he explained, going on to say that it was also costly since it keeps changing. “Here, we can change it the way we want,” he said.

Data of all roads of Sri Lanka are available in the computer. The efficiency of the system is demonstrated to us when the route with the shortest distance and the minimum time from the Sunday Times office to the University of Moratuwa was calculated in a flash and the route appears on the screen.

“We can simulate the conditions of uni-flow on this,” he says going on to add “Before you put a system like that and let millions of people discover it and report back, we can find out to some degree what happens through a system like this,” he said. “If I propose something, my first job is to put it here and see” Kumarage said.

He explained that three diagnostic tools, are used when looking for improvements. They are vehicle hours, which is the total number of hours a vehicle spends on the road for a day, vehicle kilometres, which is the total number of kilometres travelled in a day and network speed. In ideal conditions the vehicle hours and the vehicle kilometres should decrease where as the network speed should increase.

A win situation is where at least two indicators are green he said. Then different alternatives could be tried out to see what works best. The present uni-flow system has increased vehicle hours and vehicle kilometres with only a reduction in network speed speaking for it.

“Traffic has a nature where if you mess around at X, the problem moves to Y. traffic is very mobile. That’s where our models come in,” he said. “Using the models you can see what the consequences will be if you close all the junctions in that area,” he explained, using an example.

Kumarage said he was approached for his input only last week. “I think they have made too many mistakes and now they’re unable to retract themselves,” he said. According to Kumarage, in order for a system such as this to work the public transportation system has to be developed to encourage more people to abandon their private vehicles for public transport.

“The cost of transport as a whole will increase if this is not done,” he said, going on to explain that when the passengers on public transport are not looked after, they will in turn opt for private vehicles of their own adding to the number of vehicles on the road, in turn increasing the congestion on the roads, aggravating the problem that the new system is supposed to solve.
“Congestion is not something you can eliminate. You have to manage it with certain specific parameters,” he said.