Practices and Challenges of Road Traffic Management in the Selected Areas in Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess practices and challenges of road traffic management in Oromia, Amhara, SNNP, and two Federal City Administrations (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa).  To do so, data were collected through self-administered questionnaires and key informants’ interviews apart from the analysis of secondary data. Hence, the research found out that the federal government and regional states have separate road traffic management systems. Even the existing rules and regulations are not well integrated in a way to track drivers who have two or more driving licenses and cars with two or more plate numbers. This could also be revealed that organizational integrations among and between federal city administration and regional states are not friendly. The study has also identified that regional states and federal city administrations separately conducted several awareness creation programs about road traffic and the causes and consequences of road traffic accidents accordingly.  Moreover, all federal and regional city administrations recruited assistant civil traffic officers from the community. Particularly, in Addis Ababa, the duties of handing over painting roads and monitoring and controlling road traffic management are not yet demarked.  However, despite all the tasks these have done, road traffic accident is the leading causes of death and material causality across the study areas.  Thus, researchers have recommended that both the federal government and regional states endorse uniform road traffic management policies and strong organization ties with friendly users of modern road traffic management systems.