A STUDY ON FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO

NAIROBIS WORSENING TRAFFIC

CONGESTION.

BY
NOEL CUTHBERT MUSHI
(1027934)

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO

CUEA IN POTENTIAL FULFILMENT OF A
REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF A
BACHELOR OF COMMERCE DEGREE IN
ACCOUNTING
2016

CERTIFICATION
I, the undersigned certify that I have read and here by recommend for acceptance by CATHOLIC
UNIVERSITY OF EATERN AFRICA (CUEA) this research report presented by Noel Cuthbert
Mushi in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the Degree In Bachelors Of
Commerce In Accounting.
This research project proposal is my original work and has not been presented for any academic
awards in any other university
Signature.........................................

Date

.......................................................

Noel Cuthbert Mushi

1027934
This research project proposal has been submitted for examination with my approval as the
University supervisor.
Signature........................................

Date

..........................................................

Dr. THOMAS NGUI

Lecturer,
Department of Management, Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA)
Signature........................................

Date

..........................................................

Dr.
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Management
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN AFRICA. (CUEA)
DEAN/DIRECTOR, DIRECTORATE/SCHOOL/BOARD

DECLARATION

I Noel Cuthbert Mushi, I declare that the contents of this research report are the results of my
own findings to the best of my knowledge and have not been presented to any university or
collage for academics awards.

Name:

Noel Cuthbert Mushi

Signature:

_________________________

Date:

_________________________

COPYRIGHT

All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form by any means like electronics, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher or CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF
EATERN AFRICA (CUEA).
Noel Cuthbert Mushi
2016
All rights reserved.

DEDICATION
This piece of work is dedicated to my lecturer Dr. Thomas Ngui for his unrelenting knowledge
and teachings towards a successful completion of this work. The work is also dedicated to my
class mates Elias Matau and Pascal Lugobi for their supports and ideas. This research report is
dedicated also to my Lord Jesus Christ, who gave me a chance to study university degree and
accomplishing my research work, my family most especially my dad and mom who have been a
strong pillar to all, my family most especially my dad and mom who have been a strong pillar to
all my advances.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The completion of this research work would not been possible without the support and sacrifice
made by a number of individuals and institution. I am highly indebted to a number of people
who have made several contributions to make my research a success. I am extremely grateful to
my Lord, my God and my Saviour, Jesus Christ for His unceasing love, grace, peace, providence
and protection for my life. The successful completion of this work came about as a result of a
massive contribution made by several people; without which the work would not have been
materialized. I therefore, deem it necessary to express my profound gratitude to the following
people. Thanks to my friends who motivated me and colleagues who challenged me to take this
bull by its horns. Sincere gratitude should go to my supervisor Dr. Thomas Ngui for his heartfelt
guidance, also for his constructive advice in all aspects of my research work, God bless you.

I am solely responsible for any shortcomings, errors of omission and commission found in this
study.

ABSTRACT

Traffic congestion is a wasteful phenomenon to businesses, society, environment and the

economy as a whole. This study analyzed contributory factors to traffic congestion in Nairobi
city, Kenya. Identification of study variables relied on theories and principles from welfare
economics. Data was collected through questionnaires administered to the citys motorists,
interviews with key informants, observations and secondary data sources. Descriptive
statistics, mathematical computations and counterfactual analysis were used to analyze the
data. Results showed that the citys congestion is due to continuously increasing number of
vehicles without effective corresponding long-term congestion management strategies. Its
related wastages were estimated as Ksh 146.5 billion and Ksh 16.7 billion annually in terms
of delays and wasted fuel respectively. It concludes that management of traffic congestion in
the city is not a one-off solution but one that shall involve all the citys stakeholders
including undertaking expensive infrastructural projects and revision of various anticongestion policies. There is also need to cascade such research in other growing towns
within the counties to share experiences and develop national statistics on the problem.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER 1

1. Introduction:
1.1 Background
Traffic congestion is a widely recognized transport cost. It is a significant factor in transport
system performance evaluation and affects transport planning decisions. As a road reaches its
capacity, each additional vehicle imposes more total delay on others than they bear, resulting
in economically excessive traffic volumes. Congestion tends to increase travel time, arrival
unreliability, fuel consumption, pollution emissions and driver stress, and reduce life
satisfaction. Congestion can be recurrent (regular, occurring on a daily, weekly or annual
cycle) or non-recurrent (traffic incidents, such as accidents and disabled vehicles). Some
congestion costs only consider recurrent, others include both.
Road traffic jams continue to remain a major problem in most cities around the world,
especially in developing regions resulting in massive delays, increased fuel wastage and
monetary losses. Due to the poorly planned road networks, a common outcome in many
developing regions is the presence of small critical areas which are common hot-spots for
congestion; poor traffic management around these hotspots potentially results in elongated
traffic jams. In this paper, we first present a simple automated image processing mechanism
for detecting the congestion levels in road traffic by processing CCTV camera image feeds.
Our algorithm is specifically designed for noisy traffic feeds with poor image quality. Based
on live CCTV camera feeds from multiple traffic signals in Kenya and Brazil, we show
evidence of this congestion collapse behavior lasting long time-periods across multiple
locations. To partially alleviate this problem, we present a local de-congestion protocol that
coordinates traffic signal behavior within a small area and can locally prevent congestion
collapse sustaining time variant traffic bursts. Based on a simulation based analysis on simple
network topologies, we show that our local de-congestion protocol can enhance road capacity
and prevent congestion collapse in localized s
Economist William Vickrey identified six types of congestion:
1. Simple interaction on homogeneous roads: where two vehicles travelling close together
delay one another.

2. Multiple interaction on homogeneous roads: where several vehicles interact.

3. Bottlenecks: where several vehicles are trying to pass through narrowed lanes.
4. Trigger neck congestion: when an initial narrowing generates a line of vehicles
interfering with a flow of vehicles not seeking to follow the jammed itinerary.
5. Network control congestion: where traffic controls programmed for peak-hour traffic
inevitably delay off-peak hour traffic.
6. Congestion due to network morphology, or polymodal polymorphous congestion: where
traffic congestion reflects the state of traffic on all itineraries and for all modes. The cost of
intervention for a given segment of roadway increases through possible interventions on
other segments of the road, due to the effect of triggered congestion.
Most congestion cost analysis concentrates on the second and third types of congestion:
congestion arising from interactions between multiple vehicles on a homogeneous road
section, and bottleneck congestion. Others types are overlooked or assumed to be included in
the types that are measured. Another often overlooked factor that complicates economic
analysis is that congestion reduces some costs. Moderate highway congestion (LOS C)
reduces traffic speeds to levels that maximize vehicle throughput and vehicle fuel efficiency,
and although congestion tends to increase crash rates per vehicle-mile, the crashes that occur
tend to be less severe, reducing injuries and deaths.
According to Andre Dzikus, coordinator of the urban basic services branch at the UN Human
Settlements Program, or UN Habitat, said in an interview in Nairobi. Kenya is one of the
most rapidly urbanizing places in the world, he also said, Europe had 100 years to adjust to
the number of vehicles and urbanization that is happening in Africa over 10 or 20 years. So
this is taking people by surprise. The growth is much faster than how it can be responded to.
Similar to many cities in the world, Nairobi is experiencing rapid urbanization which has
consequently precipitate a high demand of motorized travel. The result of this has been traffic
congestion among other negative effects almost in all corners of the city. On the backdrop of
the above scenario, this project seeks to identify the various institutions that are responsible
for provision, formulation and implementation of transport policies in Nairobi, which is

grappling with traffic congestion. The latter part of the project highlights various ways
through which public and private institutions can be more effective in their various functions
in view of a future sustainable public transport system in Nairobi.
Transport forms a key component of creating a competitive business environment as well as
means through which various socio economic and environmental objectives can be achieved.
Traffic congestion has frustrated the realization of such objectives in many cities across the
world. Congestion prevents us from moving freely and it slows and otherwise disrupts the
conduct of business within urban areas.
According to Jonathan I. Levy, et al (2007), Congestion has a range of indirect impacts
including political and the marginal environmental and resource impacts of congestion,
impacts on quality of life, stress, safety as well as impacts on none vehicle road space users
such as the users of sidewalks and road frontage properties. In many cities across United
States of America the costs of wasted time and fuel due to traffic congestion was estimated in
year 2005 at $60 billion.
A transport system should facilitate the movement of people, goods and services as
efficiently as possible from origins to destinations that are separated in time and space, and
thus reduce the effects of distance as an inhibiting factor in peoples ability to realize their
economic and social aspirations. The type of traffic congestion being witnessed in Nairobi is
leading to increased costs, longer travel times, constrained economic productivity, and
adverse health and environmental externalities. Population growth in Nairobi will most
certainly continue to have adverse implications on the transport system and traffic
congestion. In 2009, the population of the Nairobi Metro was around 6,658,000; it is
estimated that under a business as usual scenario, the population of Nairobi will grow to
approximately 14 million by the year 2030. While population pressure has been one of the
key contributing factors to transport challenges, other factors include:
Increased vehicle ownership;
Inefficient spatial distribution of land uses, among others;
Inadequate transport infrastructure;

 Lack of proper traffic control and management;

Lack of proper transport planning.
Nationally, the registration rate of new motor vehicles has increased number of vehicles in
year 2011 to year 2013. Motor cars have increased at a faster rate than buses and mini-buses,
which implies that personal vehicles are becoming more popular as a mode of transport in the
country and especially in Nairobi. This could be explained by the lack of appropriate
alternatives to private car use for daily commuting.
Besides rapid urbanization, the traffic congestion in Nairobi is blamed on Matatus (Refers to
privately owned commuter vehicles that are commonly used as a means of public transport in
Nairobi and other parts of the Country) and various institutions that have continued to
embrace western planning ideologies in various spatial development projects. In the context
of this project, western planning ideologies refer to planning approaches borrowed from the
developed world that have been used or are currently being used in spatial development. The
success of such planning approaches in developed countries is attributed to the availability
of administrative resources, specialized personnel, strong political will, functioning planning
frameworks etc. However, such planning approaches have often struggled in developing
countries because of the barriers set up by various institutions. For many years, various
private institutions have taken the lead position in provision of public transport in Kenya.
This is attributed to the failure by the public institutions to meet the increase demand in
public transport and other social amenities.
The inefficiency of the partially state owned Bus Company KBS (Kenya Bus Service) and
the railway services in the 1970s presented the Matatu operators with an opportunity to
provide public transport in Nairobi. The Matatus, which are associated with various private
institutions, became the dominant means of public transport in Nairobi and other parts of the
country. However, without a regulatory framework to govern their operations, Matatu
operators have often capitalised on its users by frequently increasing fares and breaking
traffic rules among other vices. It was as a result of a presidential decree in the 1980s that
Matatus were recognized as a public means of transport in Kenya.

1.2

Statement of Problem

1.3

Objectives of the Study

1.3.1 General Objective:

To investigate on factors contributing to Nairobis worsening traffic
congestion and come out with solution to solve the problem.
1.3.2 Specific Objectives: