Anthony Clayton | Can we solve traffic congestion?

The worsening traffic congestion in Kingston has been the focus of much attention recently. The problem results from a combination of factors:

• There are four times more vehicles on Jamaican roads today than there were 20 years ago, so the urban road network is now far more congested.

• There has been a surge recently in the number of car sales businesses; some apparently set up to rinse lottery scam money, resulting in a further increase in the number of cars on the roads.

• The growth in the number of office and housing developments has outpaced the necessary investment in road widening and maintenance. A common pattern in recent years is that low-density housing is replaced by condominiums, which means that the number of cars trying to use the same narrow road at the same time every morning suddenly increases many times over.

• Human behaviour is a major challenge. Stressed and frustrated drivers push forward after the lights have changed and block the intersection, preventing the drivers coming from the other road from moving until the lights have cycled a few times, annoying them to the point where they then push forward in their turn. This can result three or even four vehicles trying to wedge themselves into the same spot in the middle of an intersection.

This traffic congestion inflicts a range of costs. One is lost time; a study of the economics of traffic congestion in 2023 by the UN and UWI found that Jamaicans now spend on average 1.5 hours per day in traffic, with some people losing up to 40 per cent of their working hours. This is a miserable outcome for commuters and their families, and it is also one of the reasons why Jamaica’s labour productivity has remained so dismally low for decades. There is also damage to health; vehicle exhausts contain carbon monoxide, which can cause brain damage and heart failure, nitrogen dioxide, which can reduce lung growth in children and result in pulmonary disease, and fine particles that penetrate deeply into lungs and enter the bloodstream, resulting in asthma, heart attacks and strokes.

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THIS?

The answer lies, in part, in re-thinking the problem. Every major city needs affordable, sustainable and efficient transportation solutions; the question is how to provide this. An excellent mass transit system is vital. This does not immediately require huge investment in completely new infrastructure, however, as much can be done to improve the efficiency of existing systems. Some cities are now using AI to manage their bus network; the AI tracks the rate of boarding and alighting, which allows it to send out another bus when there is overcrowding; it monitors cameras inside each bus to detect any emergencies or anti-social behaviour, it uses cameras outside the bus to detect aggressive driving or vehicles illegally parked in bus stops, and alerts the police when necessary, and it has sensors under the bus to detect potholes, obstacles, flooding or other problems with the roads. The same AI can link to phone apps that give passengers the time-to-arrival of the next bus, and tell them how many seats are available. Linking the AI to the city traffic light system can allow the lights to prioritize buses at intersections, reducing delays and allow the operator to adhere to firm schedules. This makes the entire bus system much safer, more predictable and reliable, all of which is essential if people are going to be persuaded to stop using their cars.

In Jamaica’s case, this could be further supported by extending the Jamaica Eye system, with facial and license-plate recognition software to allow the immediate detection of speeding or aggressive driving, identify repeat offenders and apply automatic penalties that could be increased to take the most dangerous offenders off the road for lengthy periods. The technology needed to do this is now very reliable; police in London have just finished a trial period using facial recognition technology on the road, they screened three million people and found 800 wanted criminals; just ten people were incorrectly identified for checking but none of them were arrested. So AI could also be used to make the roads safer for all users.

VEHICLE FLEET

It is also important to start the process of changing over the vehicle fleet. A modern transport system cannot be based on the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine; as this comes with a high cost in terms of health and environmental harm, and a large oil import bill. The old engines can be phased out with programs to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), along with measures to speed up the development of renewable energy technologies. In parts of Europe, people now put solar panels on their roofs, store the power in batteries, then plug in their cars when they get home, and get free motoring as a result. Autonomous EVs offer far greater efficiency, reduced maintenance and reduced operating costs, and cities such as San Francisco are now using autonomous buses and taxis to move commuters around, Shanghai has extended this to autonomous air taxis.

Trams and other light rail metro systems are the best solution for busy transport corridors, because a railway can handle over ten times the volume of a road in the same width of land, so cities such as London and Paris are now massively extending their rail and metro networks. Fortunately, Jamaica still has part of its old railway system intact, and we could start to transform urban mobility by refurbishing the old system and building out new lines.

It is also important to take the drivers of transport demand into account. Cities such as Portland, in Oregon, were earlier pioneers of the’20-minute city’, which is the idea of planning a city to ensure that no-one lives more than a 20 minute walk, cycle or bus ride away from work, shopping, education, health, and leisure. This usually involves blending residential, business and social spaces, and connecting them with safe walkways. The goal is to make people less dependent on cars and improve both their health and their environmental quality.

During the time of COVID-19, many property developers started including home offices in new homes and apartment complexes, so that people could telecommute rather than having to drive to work. This idea would be even more popular if new complexes added business meeting rooms and video conference suites that could be booked by residents who are now managing their work portfolio from their home. The people who are now working this way generally say that they would never choose to return to their old business offices; the new arrangement gives them back the time they lost in the daily commute, gives them flexible working arrangements and allows them time for child care, and greatly improves their quality of life.

So the problems with congestion are solvable. With political will and a coordinated approach to address the different dimensions of the problem, we could improve the quality of life for all citizens, improve health and environmental quality, reduce the oil import bill, and have better, cleaner, greener and more liveable cities.

Anthony Clayton is pro chancellor professor emeritus of Caribbean Sustainable Development. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.