Tackling traffic congestion in Accra, Ghana: A road user’s perspective

Abstract

A fast emerging component of the urban transportation problem in cities of the Third World is the problem of traffic congestion. Rapid increases in car ownership coupled with poor land use planning, equate road space lack of regulated parking systems, uneducated use of the road by pedestrians, and bad driving behavior of motorists have all combined to produce congestions comparable to those experienced in cities in the advanced parts of the world. Traffic management measures have been tried in some of the major cities such as road expansion and redistribution of land uses in city centers, but most have produced minimal results. It is recommended in this paper that city authorities adopt an integrated approach to congestion with emphasis on influencing the behavior of the road users.