A Draft Report of my Final Thesis

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CHAPTER ONE 1.1 INTRODUCTION Transport as stated in the words of Hoyle and Smith (1992) is “an epitome of the complex relationships that exist between the physical environment, patterns of social and political activity and levels of economic development.” This statement goes further to buttress the position of scholars like Mabogunje (1989); Todaro (1989); and Barke and O’Hare (1984) that, ‘transport systems provide a key to the understanding and operation of many other systems at many different scales. At one extreme, intercontinental transport provides essential communication between the advanced and developing world. At the other extreme, local transport to rural markets in many parts of the third world is a vital component in changing dynamic socio-economic structures.’ In fact, the debate over the relationship between transport and development is a long- standing one, which continues to this day. In the midst of this long-standing debate, a United Nation’s 1
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Transcript of A Draft Report of my Final Thesis

Page 1: A Draft Report of my Final Thesis

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Transport as stated in the words of Hoyle and Smith (1992) is “an epitome of the complex

relationships that exist between the physical environment, patterns of social and political activity

and levels of economic development.” This statement goes further to buttress the position of

scholars like Mabogunje (1989); Todaro (1989); and Barke and O’Hare (1984) that, ‘transport

systems provide a key to the understanding and operation of many other systems at many

different scales. At one extreme, intercontinental transport provides essential communication

between the advanced and developing world. At the other extreme, local transport to rural

markets in many parts of the third world is a vital component in changing dynamic socio-

economic structures.’

In fact, the debate over the relationship between transport and development is a long- standing

one, which continues to this day. In the midst of this long-standing debate, a United Nation’s

study by Voigt in 1967 claimed that transport is “…the formative power of economic growth and

the differentiating process.”

Regardless, Hoyle (1973) states that such statements are gross over-simplifications and

according to him, the transport and development relationship is essentially a two-way interaction

process, and the result of the interaction depends upon the type of economy involved and upon

the level of development at which the transport improvements are effected. At a given stage of

development, an area requires a certain level of transport provision in order to maximize its

potentials. The fact of the matter is, most developing countries lack safe, organized, and

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effective transport structures. Some of these countries, however, have acquired an appreciable

level of transport development which, when effectively managed, could help achieve a

significant level of development.

Most urban transportation problems that confront both developed and developing countries alike

are traffic movement and congestion, crowding on public transport, difficulties for pedestrians,

environmental pollution, accidents, and parking difficulties to mention only a few. Interesting

enough, the economically advanced nations have made giant strides and indeed have achieved

significant success in managing most of these problems. Of course, some developing countries

have also made significant efforts in solving some of these problems, but much work remains to

be done. One developing country that has made giant efforts towards managing traffic

congestion with remarkable success is Singapore. Their effort date as far back as 1975 and since

then their success story has become a model for many developing and developed nations alike.

Urban transport problems have serious consequences on socio-economic lifestyles of the general

public. Luggard (1922) stated as follows, ‘the material development of Africa may be summed

up in the one word, transport.’ This could hardly be stated more appropriately. It is therefore

disheartening to mention that the envisioned socio-economic development of Africa, especially

that of Ghana, is threatened by these urban transport problems. It is against this backdrop that

this work proposes to look into the concept of road pricing as an important transportation

management strategy used in removing and/or reducing traffic congestion in the metropolis of

Accra. The prospects and problems of applying this strategy in the Accra metropolis would form

the major focus of this research. Traffic movement and congestion continue to be a serious

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problem and as a result, it creates loss of precious man-hours and reduces productivity of both

the state and organizations. In Latin America, for instance, road transport accounts for more than

eighty percent of domestic passenger movements, and more than sixty percent of freight

movements (Estache et al, 2000:pp.235).

Road transport is also known to account for more than eighty-five percent of freight and

passenger movement in some countries such as Argentina and Brazil. In Sub-Saharan Africa

(SSA), including Ghana, it is estimated that roads carry 80 to 90 percent of the region’s

passenger and freight traffic (Heggie, 1994). Not only is the sector large, but it is growing

rapidly. In Asia, for instance, from 1984-1994 the road networks of Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,

and Pakistan grew in length for more than five percent per annum. In Eastern Europe, countries

historically dominated by rail are now witnessing an increased demand for road transport. All

these increases have in no doubt contributed to the traffic congestion problem throughout the

world (Estache et al, 2000:pp.235).

Estache et al (2000:pp.235) stated that, because most road projects require investment with slow

amortization, many of these (road construction) projects will not generate sufficient demand to

make them self-financed through some type of user fee or toll. The road sector, they

acknowledged, will continue to be in the hands of the public sector, to a much larger extent than

the other transport activities. In addition, therefore, pricing decisions in this sector tend to be

influenced in many countries by strong trucking lobbies that aim at keeping cost recovery as low

as possible. However, fiscal crisis and competing demands from other sectors like health and

education are bringing changes in the extent of public- private partnership in the expansion and

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operation of road networks. Governments throughout the world, including many poor African

and South Asian countries are commercializing their operations to cut costs, improve user

orientation, and increase sector specific revenue (Estache et al, 2000). To this point, Ghana

cannot be left out of the picture.

The phenomenon of traffic congestion itself is the result of many complex factors, among which

is the proliferation of lower capacity vehicles such as private cars, taxis, and to a very large

extent mini buses known in Ghana as ‘tro-tro’ (converted small cargo vehicles into passenger

buses). Throughout the world, the concept of road pricing has been known to have two main

merits. First, it is known for the generation of revenue for the metropolitan authorities to fund

other road projects in the metropolis and/ or the country. And second, the concept of road pricing

is used for congestion management. This forms the basis of this work. This work examined some

of the problems of traffic congestion critically, and the vital role of road pricing in solving the

problem. This review is done, having in mind the objectives enshrined in the urban transport

policy reform document of Ghana, designed in the 1990s as well as the white-paper of the

proposed Ghana transport policy document currently underway. We have also taken into account

the Road Traffic Offences Regulations of 1974 that came out of the Road Traffic Ordinance of

1952. All these documents were meant to control and/ or check the human elements that are

likely to lead to the problem under investigation.

Some specific objectives enshrined in the documents mentioned above were meant to improve

accessibility of the urban community to places of residence, employment, education, leisure,

shopping and to other important amenities. Again, reference was made to the enhancement of

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the urban travel opportunities at affordable cost for the less mobile, including the urban poor;

non-vehicle owners; children; the elderly and the handicapped; and a host of others like the

opening of doors when cars are in motion; stopping of vehicles thirty feet near a junction; and

parking of vehicles on a road abreast of another motor vehicle. The researcher employed various

approaches to collect the relevant data for the study. Discussion and interpretations of the

findings took into account the conditions of the social milieu of the country, the global

occurrences, plus documents available in the transport sector (basically those on road

transportation).

1.2 Definition of Some Concepts in this Study

Road pricing: This is a type of arrangement where motorists pay directly for driving on a

particular roadway or in a particular area. There is the Manual Road Pricing Scheme, which

includes the following: Area Licensing Scheme (ALS) and the Road Pricing Scheme (RPS). The

difference between these two is that the former is paid upon entering a specific area-called

restricted zone (RZ) whilst the latter is paid upon traveling on an expressway. It should be noted

that the area-licensing scheme is where low occupancy vehicles are charged for entering

congested areas during rush hours or periods. This is usually aimed at reducing the number of

private cars during rush periods by encouraging the use of public transportation. For this system

to work effectively and successfully there should be adequate public transportation for handling

the extra demand that would be generated.

There is also what is currently known as the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system. The ERP

was basically introduced so as to make the system run faster and also to correct some of the

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shortcomings of the manual system. ERP therefore has three major groups of components. The

first comprises the In-vehicle Unit (IU) and the stored-value smart card. The second group

consists of the on-site ERP gantries, which include the antennae, vehicle detectors, and an

enforcement camera system that take pictures of the vehicles’ license plates as they drive through

the gantries. This group of components is linked to a controller on-site, and data collected are

transmitted to the control centre. The third group of components in an ERP system is the Control

Centre. This includes various servers, monitoring systems and a master clock to ensure timing at

all the ERP gantries are synchronized. All financial transactions are also processed here, before

they are sent to the bank for settlement by individuals. Again, violation images of offenders are

processed at this point, and letters are sent out to them. Therefore, the major difference between

manual and electronic road pricing lies in the fact that the former is human centered, whilst the

latter is technology based. The following are some of the various types of road pricing:

Congestion Pricing or Value Pricing; this refers to variable road pricing; a higher price under

congested conditions and lower prices at less congested times and locations. And, value pricing

is actually a marketing term that emphasizes that road pricing, can directly benefit motorists

through reduced congestion or improved roadways.

Cordon (area) Tolls; these are fees paid by motorists to drive in a particular area, usually a city

centre. Some cordon tolls only apply during peak periods, such as weekdays. This can be done

by simply requiring vehicles driven within the area to display a pass, or by tolling at each

entrance to the area or what is known simply as control points.

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Vehicle Use Fees; these are distance-based charges such as mileage fees that can be used to fund

roadways or to reduce traffic impact including congestion, pollution, and accident risks. Other

alternatives are what Lo et al (1996) and Armstrong-Wright (1986) referred to as area licensing,

parking restraints, user taxes, and vehicle licensing restraints. They were, however, quick to add

that, these do not directly affect the root cause of congestion.

Control Points; these are entry points into the described area. At these points, there would be

enforcement personnel who check the screens of the vehicles to see if they have displayed the

road pricing licenses authorizing them to enter the area during the rush hours as stated in earlier

paragraphs.

Optimal Use of Roadways; it is often times difficult to determine this concept. But for the

purpose of this work, the concept would be used to mean speeds on all CBD roads between

20km/hr and 30km/hr. For expressways, the speeds may be between 45km/hr and 65km/hr.

When speeds go above the upper limits, too few vehicles are deemed to be using the roads, and

hence the road space available is not being optimally used. On the other hand, when speeds fall

far below the lower thresholds one can say there is a problem of congestion because many

vehicles would be using the road, hence the need for action to be taken to maintain sanity, just as

in the case of the area selected for the study.

Optimal Average Speed; since in the Ghanaian case, there is not really a definition of the

concept, we refer here to the Singaporean definition, which means that on the expressways speed

has to be within the following range: 45-65km/hr. and, those of other streets should be within

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ranges: 20-30km/hr. This implies that if speed is lower than 45-65km/hr on the expressways,

there is congestion. But if speed exceeds 65km/hr, there is under utilization of the roadway. This

explanation also holds in the case of streets.

Throughput; this refers to the number of vehicles that can actually travel from one point to

another point during or within a given time period.

Table 1.1 summarizes these different categories of road pricing and their objectives. Some

provide revenues, some reduce peak-period congestion, some reduce total traffic impacts

(congestion, pollution, accident risks, road and parking facility costs, etc.), and some help

achieve a combination of objectives.

Table 1.1 Road Pricing Categories

NameDescription Objectives

Congestion

pricing (value

pricing)

A fee that is higher under congested

conditions than uncongested conditions,

intended to shift some vehicle traffic to other

routes, times and modes.

To raise

revenues and

reduce traffic

congestion.

Cordon (area)

fees

Fees charged for driving in a particular area. To reduce

congestion in

major urban

centres.

Road space

rationing

Revenue-neutral credits used to ration peak-

period roadway capacity.

To reduce

congestion on

major roadways

or urban centres.

Source: VTPI, 2006

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1.3 Some Assumptions Underlying this Study

The assumptions governing this study are as follows:

It is assumed that there cannot be any more physical extension in the roads/streets

defining the enclosed area for the research. And, even if there were any such extension in

any of such roads in the future, they could not accommodate the growing travel demand

of the people.

It is also assumed that with the coming into force of the road-pricing scheme, the

efficiency in the operations of the public transport sector (e.g. metro mass transport)

would be enhanced, as there would be more space available for them to provide reliable

service to the public.

The coming into force of the road pricing scheme is expected to discourage people from

using low capacity vehicles (e.g. private cars etc), and use the pubic transport thereby

cutting down on non-essential trips to the area in question.

1.4 Statement of the Problem

The problem that this thesis seeks to address is how road pricing can help reduce traffic

congestion within the Central Business District of Accra. The following questions can then be

asked: how should traffic congestion be effectively managed to bring about such transformations

needed in the human society? What are the challenges or the problems that are likely to be faced

when embarking on road price implementation? Again, what are the likely prospects of

implementing it?

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Pacione (2005, pp. 267) states as follows, “…the primary function of urban transport is to

provide mobility for people and goods within the city, but the efficiency with which this is

achieved is reduced by congestion”. Traffic congestion may simply be defined as a situation that

arises when road and rail networks are no longer capable of accommodating the movements that

occur on them (Turton et al, 1992). Yildirim (2001, pp. 3) also states that congestion is becoming

an inevitable part of everyday life in most metropolitan areas all over the world. He continued by

saying that, increasing population and wealth result in more automobiles than current

transportation networks can handle. Due to limited expansion possibilities of the transportation

network, congestion has increased drastically over the last decade.

The major cause of urban traffic congestion as identified by Pacione (2005, pp.267-268), “…is

the increasing number and use of vehicles on the roads. More specifically, it stems from the

concentration of travel flows at certain times during the day, with the principal reason for the

typical double-peak distribution of daily trips being the journey to and from work”. The

proliferation of low capacity vehicles such as taxis and ‘tro-tro’ or mini buses in the Accra

Metropolis have also contributed immensely to the problem. It must also be stated here that other

factors such as lack of proper road markings; narrowness of roads; and lack of necessary

intersections among others also contribute to the problem of traffic congestion in the Accra

Metropolis. Apart from the causes identified by Pacione above, other causes are the human

elements; for example lack of adequate pedestrian crossing points, drivers stopping anywhere

and anyhow in the network (at least in the Ghanaian case), selling/hawking in the streets, and

vehicles sharing the roads with pedestrians and, in some cases with animals.

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According to the Ministry of Transportation’s brochure on the Urban Transport Project; Concept

Design of the Accra Pilot Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT), the population of the Greater Accra

Metropolitan Area (GAMA) will double in the next 15-20 years. And this will be associated with

a continuing trend of reducing population density, expanding built up area, improvement in per

capita income, and an estimated five fold increase in car ownership. It was stated that, currently

more than 70% of major roads in Accra are congested and the picture is likely to get worse

should current trends continue.

The document also acknowledges that the available road space in the Metropolis is used in an

inefficient manner. For example surveys conducted in 2004 showed that more than 70% of the

motorized trips in Accra depended on some form of bus transport (trotro and large buses), but

this together utilizes just over 30% of the road space. Cars and taxis on the other hand carry less

than 30% of the person trips, but utilize almost 60% of the available road space in the

metropolis.

It is therefore sufficient to state that traffic congestion in the Accra Metropolis has become a

serious nuisance if not an obstacle that hinders peoples’ socio-economic development as well as

the productivity of the entire country. Statistics show there have been increases in the number of

registered vehicles throughout Ghana, and more specifically in the Accra Metropolis. The total

urban road network in the country as of 2005 stood at 5,504km. This comprises both paved and

unpaved roads. In the Accra Metropolis alone, a total of 775 kilometers of the urban road

network was paved; representing 54% of the total kilometers of road network in the Metropolis.

A total of 658 kilometers was not, however, paved during the same time frame- 2005. This figure

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(658km) represents approximately 46% of the total road network in the Metropolis of Accra

(Department of Urban Roads, 2006). This could also, although to a minimal degree, have effect

on the flow of traffic or movement.

Available data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) show that a total of

52,881 vehicles were registered in Ghana in 2000. Out of this figure, 23,021 were registered in

the Greater Accra Region (comprising the Accra Metropolitan Area, Ga District, Dangme West

and Dangme East) excluding the Tema Municipality. The Tema Municipal Area alone registered

a total of 13,400 vehicles in 2000. In 2001, there was a drop in the AMA figure to 18,092

representing a difference of 4,929. These numbers continued to rise and fall from 2002 to 2004

with an ending figure of 24,884 in 2005. These statistics clearly illustrate the unstable and

fluctuating number of registered vehicles.

In the year 2000, 27,552 private motor vehicles (PTE MV) with 2000 cubic capacity (CC) were

registered throughout the country. This figure was far more than the total number of registered

commercial motor vehicles (COMM MV) up to 2000 CC, which were only 5,104. In that same

year, however, the total number of registered buses and coaches stood at 5,469. In 2005, the

total number of PTE MV with 2000 CC stood at 22,949. Although this represents a drop in the

year 2000 figure, it nevertheless exceeded that of commercial motor vehicles, buses and coaches,

which stood at 6,686 and, 5,585 respectively. The table below shows these trends. It must be

noted here that, even though there were no figures available to the researcher concerning the

number of registered PTE MV; COMM MV; and Buses and Coaches solely for the Accra

Metropolitan Area for the period 2000 to 2005, the researcher estimates after a careful study of

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the figures that, the numbers for the AMA would be far greater than all other districts in Ghana

given the level of concentration of socio-economic activities in the area.

Table 1.2 Vehicles Registered in Accra District, and Registered Categories in Ghana.

Year PTE MV

Up to 2000cc

(Ghana)

COMM MV

Up to 2000cc

(Ghana)

Buses &

Coaches

(Ghana)

No. Of Registered Vehicles

in Accra

District

2000 27,552 5,104 5,469 23,021

2001 17,953 5,568 2,676 18,092

2002 18,512 6,015 2,601 20,884

2003 20,564 5,110 2,916 19,136

2004 20,333 7,642 4,882 21,458

2005 22,949 6,686 5,585 24,884

Totals 127,863 36,125 24,129 127,475

Source: Extracted from the DVLA compilations, 2005. NB: PTE MV ≡ Private Motor Vehicle. COMM MV ≡ Commercial Motor Vehicle. CC ≡ Cubic Capacity.

Clearly the increases in PTE MV contribute to the traffic congestion in the country; moreover the

Accra Metropolis nevertheless receives the greatest number of registered vehicles. This

phenomenon is partly attributed to the general increases in incomes and a lack of efficient public

transport system operations in the country’s capital city. Again, the availability of facilities such

as auto loans have led to the increase in private car ownership in the city of Accra. Regardless,

the fact still remains that the roads in the Metropolis still fall short of the travel demand of the

city dwellers, hence the problem of traffic congestion that has bedeviled the city for many years

now. This situation has led to loss of precious man-hours and general productivity over the years.

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In spite of these developments, road pricing for travels within urban areas has not been adopted

in this country, and in most urban areas in the world, especially in third world countries. In the

Accra Metropolis, there are hardly any toll roads. It is difficult to generate funds locally (or

domestically) for the road sector. In the face of these, traffic continues to increase on most of the

roads during peak-periods (as described in coming paragraphs). Road pricing, has basically two

merits; first, it helps generate revenue for the construction and maintenance of the roads.

Secondly, it helps to manage efficiently the problem of traffic congestion on the roads, and in

selected areas of a city.

As a management strategy, road pricing has an advantage of reducing peak-period vehicular

traffic as well as shift travels to other modes (if available) and times considered desirable. In

terms of revenue generation, road pricing has an advantage in producing funds and helps to

maximize revenue or recover specific costs. A typical example here is the Singaporean model

where road pricing was recorded to have reduced traffic volume by about 10 to 15 per cent

(Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2006). It must be stated here that it is a painstaking strategy.

Although the Ghana Road Fund Act of 1997 recognizes the potentials of road tolls as part of the

strategy to support the Fund, it should be stated that such a mechanism is not widespread to

generate the needed funds required for the road sector even though demand for travel and car

ownership has greatly increased over the years.

1.5 Goals/Objectives of the Study

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The general aim of this study is to work towards unearthing the prospects and problems of

implementing road pricing in the Accra Metropolis as a measure to help reduce road traffic

congestion first in the Accra Metropolis, and possibly in other urban centres in Ghana. On a

more specific note, however, the study would work towards the attainment of the following

objectives:

to establish the connection between socio-economic variables (e.g. income levels) and

private car ownership;

to examine the relationship that may emerge between road pricing and the patronage of

‘tro-tro’/ mini bus and taxi;

to ascertain what the effects of road pricing would be on metro/public transport

patronage; and

to make recommendations to guide policy formulation and policy implementation

1.6 Propositions Underlying this Study:-the following propositions have been carefully

formulated to aid in the discussion of field data:

That a relationship may exist between road pricing and reduction in traffic congestion.

That reduction in the number of low capacity vehicles entering the study area may be a

function of road pricing.

1.7 Conceptual Framework

Figure 1.0 shows the structure of the problem and its various components. It also shows the

effects of road pricing on the various elements. The framework holds that rising incomes would

generally lead to an increase in car ownership and thus more car travel, and together with other

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factors such as population increases and urbanization, it is most likely that a further increase in

traffic congestion will occur, a situation that could only be described as chaotic.

The various consequences of the problem have also been shown in the diagram below (Fig. 1.0).

This would therefore result in less public bus travel hence higher bus fares and reduced services.

This situation, in the long run, is anticipated to lead to more car ownership; increases in car

travels; and more congestion. However, with the implementation of road pricing which is

anticipated to produce an efficient public transport system, there is the likelihood of achieving a

significant reduction in car ownership, and car travels, hence a concomitant reduction in

congestion, partly achieved through higher patronage of public transport. Below is the

diagrammatic representation of the framework.

Fig. 1.0 Showing the Relationship amongst the Various Components of the Problem

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Rising Income

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SOURCE: Adopted and modified version of Pacione’s work (2005), pp. 271.

1.8 Justification/Rationale of the Study

During the last decade or so transport geography had shared with other aspects of the discipline

in a general swing towards ‘geography of relevance’ (Williams 1981, pp 22), quoted by

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More Car-Ownership

MoreCar travel

Congestion

Road Pricing

Difficulties for pedestrians and cyclists

Environmental Impact

Bus Delays and unreliability

Locational Change

Less bus Travel

Higher Bus Fares and Reduced Services

Road Pricing

Reduced

Reduced

Reduced

More Travel

Lower Bus Fares & Increased Services

Reduced Faster & Reliable

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Farrington (1985). Farrington also states that, “…for the transport geographer this has included

for example the imperatives of defining and applying the concepts of accessibility, assessing the

role of transport in economic development and recognizing the environmental impact of

transportation. “First as geographers seeking a much more active role in the promotion of

human welfare” (Smith 1997, pp 1) and then as researchers offering explanations of such

activities, it is important that we take up the issue of road pricing and traffic congestion more

seriously as it ultimately borders on socio-economic development, and even on the politico-

cultural well-being of the citizens. In this spirit, this research tried to delve into the problem as

stated in previous paragraphs. Most of the literature available on transportation reveal a wide

spread belief in the importance of transport, and its efficiency in accelerating the developmental

process of a nation. Accordingly, the rationale of this work has been to bring to light the

prospects and problems one is likely to encounter in trying to implement road pricing in the

Accra Metropolis as a strategy to help reduce or curb traffic congestion in the metropolis.

The concept ‘Development’ still remains difficult to define in absolute terms. In this direction,

the perspectives of scholars such as Mabogunje, Addo and others should be taken seriously.

Mabogunje (1980) conceptualized development in modern times to mean socio-economic

transformation of society. Addo (1995) states as follows, “…it is pertinent to draw attention to

the view presently held by many scholars that development means something more than

economic growth (GNP) or economic development.” In this direction, for development to be

fully realized the researcher is of the view that people must have quick (or easy) access to their

places of work, residence, etc or in simple terms accessibility must be greatly improved to propel

us to develop more quickly. The question therefore is how should traffic congestion be

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effectively managed to bring about such transformations in the human society? What are the

challenges or the problems that are likely to be faced when embarking on such a journey of road

price implementation? Again, what are the likely prospects of implementing it? These questions

form the basis or rationale behind this work.

1.9 The Methodology adopted for the Study

This comprised sources of data collection, the sampling design or technique, the target

population, and methods of field data collection and analysis.

1.9.1 Sources of Data

Relevant data for this research were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The

former source called for the use of structured questionnaires as well as interviews. Focus group

discussion (FGD) technique was also used. Cassette recorder was mostly used in capturing what

was discussed. The information on the cassette was then transcribed and used in the analysis.

Participant observation technique was also employed in collecting some relevant information

about the target population. With regard to the secondary sources, a great deal of lesson was

drawn from textbooks, geographical and economic journals on transport, working papers and

reports. The Internet and other sources such as policy documents on transport were all used.

The outcome of the field investigations (i.e. questionnaire administration and interviews) has

been thoroughly discussed in chapters four and five. Questions relating to places where people

reside and where they work were also posed to the people and these have been carefully mapped

out to give a general idea of the routes along which people travel into and from the CBD. Other

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questions asked were; how education influences or affects peoples’ driving culture. To what

extent does this go to make people change their behaviour towards driving properly? Does

education matter at all when it comes to the issue of ability to own a car? And does this have

anything to do with the management and/ or control of traffic congestion on the roads in

question?

Data on the incomes of some respondents and the numbers of cars they have were also collected.

This information made it possible to draw a correlation between income levels and private car

ownership. Most of the interviews were done alongside the administration of the questionnaires

except in some few cases where we had to conduct interviews separately due to the absence of

key leaders or opinion leaders. The whole data collection exercise of this work lasted six months,

starting from November 2006 to April 2007. However, the real field data collection started from

January 2007 to April 2007 (refer to Appendix D).

1.9.2 Sampling Design

Owing to the heterogeneous nature of the population, a stratified sampling technique was used to

sub-group the population as follows: commercial vehicle operators (i.e. taxi and tro-tro); private

car owners; public transport operators (metro transport etc.); policy formulators (i.e. Ministry of

Road Transport, Department of Urban Roads, Accra Metropolitan Assembly); and the general

public or commuters. The respective percentages have been shown in the table. A simple

random sampling technique was employed to each of the above-mentioned sub-groups to arrive

at the target population, which amount to 210. For instance in selecting the 48 general

commuters out of the 210, the table of random numbers was used. Three-digit numbers were

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then read in the column of numbers. Hence the first 48 numbers in the column that had a value of

210 were written down. Each of these represents an individual in the 210 target population.

Table 1.3 below shows the distribution. The justification underlying this selection was to observe

the various responses from these different groups since road pricing scheme is bound to affect

them differently. This was also done to highlight the particular contributions of the different

groups and analyze them in a more scientific way. For instance it was necessary to give enough

sample size to the group of private car owners since road pricing is bound to affect them more

directly than other groups.

Table 1.3 Share of Target Population

SUB-GROUP SHARE PERCENTAGE

Commercial Vehicle

Operators

30 14.29

Private Car Owners/drivers 110 52.38

Public Transport Operators 20 9.52

Policy Formulators 2 0.95

General Public 48 22.86

TOTAL 210 100

Source: fieldwork 2006

1.9.3 Methods of Data Analysis

Data generated from the field for this study was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential

statistics. By descriptive methods of summarizing information, the researcher employed

techniques such as: percentage bar graphs, pie charts, frequency tables, and others such as

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standard deviation, to summarize the raw information gathered from the field. To establish the

relationship between a rise in income and car ownership, a simple correlation equation such as

the following; Yi = a +bXi, was used where ‘Y’ is the dependent variable (car ownership), and

‘X’ is the independent variable (income), ‘b’ is the gradient or slope of the line of best fit, and

‘a’ is known as the ‘Y’ intercept if ‘X’ is zero, meaning the point at which the line of best fit cuts

the Y-axis.

Using the Least Square Regression Line where the value of ‘b’ and ‘a’ can be mathematically

computed as has been shown in Appendix B, one can suitably run a regression for the afore-

stated variables (income and number of cars), and from this one can proceed to make a

prediction of the variables in question. In running a multiple regression the Queuing Analysis

could also have been used, but since all the factors that cause congestion do not have numerical

values- for instance human behaviour cannot be mathematically quantified- there was the need to

use only the quantifiable variables thus the income and number of cars in the case of this work.

Using the simple equation above (all things being equal) one could predict car ownership should

income levels be known in advance. Assuming that government had increased salaries of

workers in a particular year, we could then predict the number of people who are likely to own

cars, or people who are likely to acquire additional cars. In their simplest form, therefore,

correlation studies are used to investigate the possibility of relationships between only two

variables (like the one stated above), although investigations of more than two variables are

common. A correlation study then describes the degree to which two or more quantitative

variables are related, and this is done by using the correlation coefficient (denoted by r), which

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could also be expressed in percentage termed the coefficient of determination (denoted by r2 ).

The computations of these have been shown in appendix B.

The calculation of ‘r’ is in many ways similar to the Pearson’s product-moment coefficient of

correlation. The correlation research technique used here was to fulfill basic purposes such as; to

explain positive or negative relationships between variables. The outcome of ‘r’ as we shall soon

see, aided by the computation of the significance level would help in explaining if the

relationship between the two variables -income and vehicle ownership- was strong enough to

make a well-built case with. It is important to note that, in the simple predictive model or

equation above, the Yi is known as the predicted variable on Y (also known as the criterion

variable) for individual i’s, Xi is known as the individual i’s variable on X (or the predictor

variable), and ‘a’ and ‘b’ are then values calculated mathematically from the original variables or

scores as have been demonstrated in Appendix B. Again, for any given set of data, ‘a’ and ‘b’ are

constants.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW AND RELATED ISSUES

2.1 Chapter Overview

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This chapter attempts a critical review of some available literature on the subject under

investigation-road pricing. The researcher critically reviewed the experiences of Singapore, Oslo,

Trondheim, Bergen, London, California, and those of other places. One cannot complete a

review of a study on road pricing without considering the economic perspective of the subject.

For this and other reasons, the study also ventured into a review of the economic discourse on the

implementation of road pricing and its’ potential to reduce road traffic congestion. The study

also looked into some of the barriers to the implementation of road pricing in the selected

metropolitan cities as well as other issues that border on the applicability and/or

implementability of the scheme. Some related issues on the subject (for instance the World

Bank’s study report on road pricing, 2000) have also been discussed in this chapter. Furthermore,

the benefits and costs issues of road price implementation have also been discussed here.

2.2 Literature Review

Chin (2002) remarks as follows, ‘road pricing is an important component of Singapore’s overall

transportation strategy’. This is perhaps why they have been able to reasonably manage the

situation very well up to this day. According to him while road capacity continues to be

increased judiciously in Singapore to meet rising travel demand, the strategy also calls for

greater reliance on public transport usage and demand management. This is a demonstration that,

we need to support road pricing scheme with the other means of traffic congestion management

such as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project being proposed by the government of Ghana.

As part of a demand management strategy, Chin (2002) proposed the restraining of vehicle

ownership either through the imposition of high up-front ownership costs or restrictions on the

actual growth of the car population. The former type includes the custom duties and vehicle

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registration fees, which amounted to almost one-and-a-half times that of the cars open market

value. This has somewhat been a policy in Ghana for some time now, but so far it has yielded

hardly any significant success in managing traffic congestion on our roads. The latter is managed

through a vehicle quota system. The other aspect of demand management that he also proposed

is to restrain vehicle usage through the levy, or a charge on motorists based on the quantity,

place, or time of the use of their cars. Generally, the more one uses his/her car, the more one has

to pay. Chin (2002) then declares that the road pricing schemes, petrol tax, diesel duty and

parking charges are measures in this category.

Pacione (2005) also asserted that in many countries road travelers pay to use intercity roads.

However, tolls for travel within urban areas have not been adopted widely enough. This is

nevertheless, the case in Ghana where even intercity tolls are very poorly organized, leading to

poor revenue mobilization as well as poor traffic control management systems. Chin (2002)

further concluded by saying that road pricing in Singapore has been effective in managing

congestion on roads in the central business district (CBD) since its inception in 1975 and in

recent years on expressways and other major roads outside the CBD. Technology, he noted, has

helped to make the expansion of the original road-pricing scheme possible and the authorities are

still keeping tab on new developments in road pricing technology to further enhance the present

system.

In a similar report produced by the Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA, 2002, pp. 3),

it was reported that the Swedish Parliament’s decision on the continued development in the

transportation system, emphasized adapting road pricing as a measure to providing a sustainable

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transport system. The planning was based on sub-goals of that parliament’s transportation policy

and parliament’s vision of what they desired to achieve. The planning has to satisfy both the

needs of transportation and the ambition to accomplish sustainable solutions. New effective

combinations of established as well as new and untried policy measures and inputs must be

considered and used in order to attain stipulated goals in that country. In this respect, the SNRA

then made use of a method involving a four-step principle with a focus on gradual testing of

measures starting with “Soft” measures that affect the need of transportation, choice of mode,

and efficiency to evaluate the problem.

It was not until such measures have been found insufficient for solving the problem that other

measures such as new road constructions or improvements were taken into consideration. This

Swedish experience of stimulating the need of transportation, choice of mode and efficiency as

well as the construction of new transportation facilities and improvements in the quality of the

already existing ones (roads) have been the approach closest to the Ghanaian scenario for some

time now. For instance, in the latest drafted National Transport Policy document (called the

Green Paper), all the kilometers of roads that have been constructed from 2000 to 2005 was

stated. This was perhaps done to emphasize the fact that the nation believes in the construction of

new road infrastructure as well as in improving existing ones as a mechanism in reducing traffic

congestion that have bedeviled our cities for a very long time, which we can say, is in many

ways similar to the Swedish case although the purpose might also be to maintain the road

network or infrastructure for future generations.

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In Ghana the most dominant carrier of freight and passengers is the land transport system. The

Ghana National Transport Policy paper stated that in 2000 Ghana had an extensive road network

of 42,000 kilometers. In 2001 the figure stood at 50,000 kilometers, and by the end of 2005 it

stood at 60,000 kilometers. In 2004, 36 percent of roads were rated good, 27 percent were rated

fair, and 37 percent poor. These were improvements over previous years. In 1997 for example, it

was envisioned that roads could be improved to 70 percent good, 20 percent fair, and more than

10 percent poor by 2002, but these targets were not achieved. As mentioned in the same draft

document, improvement works on the roads have increased gradually. The sad aspect is that the

Ghanaian government would have to rely on borrowed funds to support the construction as well

as the improvement of the road network. The other aspect of the problem is due largely to

unplanned expansion and lack of local construction capacity and skills. Therefore, in many cases,

the cost of construction is too high and the roads are left to deteriorate until such time that funds

become available for the construction works to begin.

Congestion as indicated in the National Transport Policy document is a growing problem

creating costs to our economy, pollution, and higher risk for traffic accidents. There are

institutions in place to address the various needs and issues of our transport system, but our

transport agencies have prepared separate, mode-focused policies, which have not been

beneficial in a lot of ways. On the other hand, they served their purposes in the traditional

planning processes in the country. The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS II), which is

to cover the period 2006 to 2009, is to accelerate the growth of the economy so that the country

can achieve middle income status within a measurable time period. And, in line with the

transport objectives for fulfilling the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

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visions which are: - to reduce delays in cross-border movement of people, goods and services; to

reduce waiting time in ports; to promote economic activity and cross border trade through

improved land transport linkages and; to increase air passenger and freight linkages across

Africa’s sub-regions, the Government of Ghana, which is the provider of transport infrastructure

and to an extent provider of transport services and a regulator and controller in the field has

launched the Urban Transport Project aimed at saving the sector from further collapse.

The Ghana Urban Transport Project meant to improve transportation in the country, and help

develop a framework for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to plan,

regulate and manage urban transportation is a welcome news. The key objectives of the project

as stated are:

Improve mobility in areas of participating MMDAs through, a combination of

traffic engineering measures, management improvement, regulation of the public

transport industry, and implementation of the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system.

Promote a shift to more environmentally sustainable urban transport modes and

encourage lower transport-related GHG emissions along the pilot BRT corridor in

Accra.

The expected outcome of the investments on the pilot BRT corridor are; to reduce average travel

time for bus passengers, increase average travel speed for all traffic, increase productivity of bus

services (passenger share of large buses) and ultimately to reduce carbon dioxide (C02) emissions

along the pilot BRT corridor in Accra. But as has always been the case, we face a number of

challenges (policy-wise) towards planning and developing our road network. Funding for this

very project is coming from both Ghana’s development partners and the government, but the

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bulk of the funds are coming from the former. This has always been the case. However, as stated

in the “Green Paper” now the “White Paper”, we must address a system of user charges that will

help raise revenues to cover maintenance, improvement works, and expansion costs. The Traffic

Engineering, Management and Safety component of the BRT under the Urban Transport Project

also spells out the need to deal with congestion; and road pricing, if adopted, could help fulfill

these aspirations.

According to the SNRA (2002) report, road pricing in urban areas is an interesting measure for

solving and/or managing the problem of traffic congestion in most urban areas. It would be

observed that the Swedish Parliament had also, by their action, opened an opportunity for the

implementation of road pricing in interested municipalities and regions. The government, as

stated by the report, had asserted at the time that, this issue would be dealt with if there was a

proposal to implement road pricing as part of the strategy to help solve road traffic congestion

and related environmental, social and economic problems. This is a demonstration of the

commitment needed from policy formulators to get the scheme going. If Ghana is to use such a

scheme in solving the problem of congestion in Accra, one needs to see these actions

crystallizing in order to pave the way for successful implementation of such a programme.

In this direction, the SNRA (2002) report as well as other works may form the basis upon which

we should build the discourse in the Ghanaian context. The Ghanaian case is in many ways

similar to those of many other areas where road pricing has been adopted and/or tried or even

considered for many years now. The Ghanaian urban population is growing at quite an alarming

rate. The Greater Accra Region for instance, has remained the most densely populated region in

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the country since the 1960s (Ghana Statistical Service report, 2002). The Population density has

increased from 167 persons in 1960 to 441 persons in 1984 and to 895.5 persons per square

kilometer as at 2000.

The Region’s intercensal growth rate of 4.4 per cent between 1984 and 2000 is much in excess of

the national average of 2.7 per cent per annum and this implies a doubling time of 16 years

(Ghana Statistical Service report, 2002). The total numbers of registered vehicles (both

commercial and private) as illustrated under the problem statement of this work are on the

increase. There is also pollution of our urban environment on daily basis as a result of an

increase in vehicle ownership due to increase in incomes and the consequent long queues that

occur on the roads. As mentioned earlier, most of the roads in the urban areas are also narrow.

Extensions can rarely be made possible as a result of the nature of the land use (i.e. location of

departmental stores, food stalls, residences, etc along the roads), and due to the difficulties in

raising adequate funds towards such projects.

The SNRA (2002) report stated that road pricing is still an untried measure in Sweden although

there are several theoretical calculations concerning its viability. The same can also be said about

other countries as well. The effects of road pricing on traffic; environment; business; housing;

and location together with the charges’ distributive effects and socio-economic consequences

cannot be contested. Many authorities in this field including transport geographers for several

years have conducted researches into the effects of road pricing on, for example, residential

location patterns. It is worth mentioning that this has been the situation in many places (both

developed and developing nations alike). However, the SNRA (2002) report states that when the

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issue of road pricing was debated, there were many questions on its sustainability. Therefore,

countries seeking and/or wanting to adopt road pricing should consider the issue of

sustainability.

What one should therefore note is that, the Swedish and other case studies throughout the globe

are also reports of principal reasoning, calculations of concrete proposals and practical

experiences by experts. As published by the SNRA’s report (2002), in some cases in particular

when it comes to distributive effects, scientists do not quite agree on many of the issues. And, as

acknowledged by the same report, there are quite a number of studies concerning the calculated

effects of proposed road pricing systems; some of which have never been realized. It is therefore

appropriate for all to study these cases well enough, before making any attempt at

implementation.

Yildirim (2001, pp.3) states that increasing population and wealth results in more automobiles

than current transportation networks can handle. This observation by Yildirim is very much in

tune with issues raised in the study’s conceptual framework. He further states that due to limited

expansion possibilities of the transportation network, congestion has increased drastically over

the last decade. Vehicle ownership in Ghana has increased, and would continue to increase in

coming years and this calls for better planning of facilities.

Arnott and Small (1994) estimate that one third of the vehicular movement occurs in congested

areas in 39 metropolitan areas of the United States with a population of one million or more.

They state that even without taking into account the additional factors such as lost work and

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leisure time, health problems, stress, discomfort, cost of extra fuel, accidents, and air pollution,

the annual cost of driving in congested areas is around 48 billion dollars or 640 dollars per driver

in the USA. These figures make the problem of traffic congestion serious and very threatening

when nothing is done about it.

Interestingly enough, there has not been any quantitative appraisal of losses caused by

congestion in the Ghanaian situation as at the time of conducting this research. However, there

are significant annual loses in terms of the nations’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as in

social terms which most players in the field acknowledge. In most areas where the concept of

road pricing has been adopted, Yildirim explains that traffic planners often charge users in order

to restrain the number of travelers on the transportation network. By charging the users,

transportation planners try to achieve several objectives (Yildirim, 2001). Some of these

objectives enumerated by Lo et al (1996) and May (1986) as quoted in Yildirim’s thesis are: cost

recovery for planning, construction, operation, and maintenance of the network. This type of

objective is widely used by many transportation agencies to recover costs of building new

highways, tunnels, and bridges. In the context of congestion pricing, users can be charged by the

operation agencies to the extent of the congestion that they are causing on the transportation

network. An example the authors cited was the case of a privately owned toll road along side

SR-91 in Orange County, California.

Whilst agreeing that the Orange County case study is feasible, this might not necessarily hold in

the Ghanaian context. The Ghanaian situation calls for a completely different approach, while

drawing from the experiences of other parts of the world. As acknowledged earlier, we do not

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have that huge traffic volume as compared to other places (like the developed nations) but what

makes the Ghanaian case alarming and urgent, is the inability to embark on physical extension

on the roads due to lack of adequate road space and funding vis-à-vis increase in vehicle

ownership which results in the complexity of other factors like loss in productive time etc.

The other objective why transport planners find it necessary and pertinent to charge road users is

the retrieval of negative externalities. The users of the roads are expected to pay not only the

direct cost including fuel and travel time but also the cost that they impose on others such as

additional congestion and travel delay that drivers create, air pollution and accidents amongst

others. All such additional costs are found to be negative externalities as the economists and

other players in the field (e.g. the transport geographers) term them.

The last reason why planners would like to charge users of roads is for demand management.

According to Arnott and Small (1994), when the use of the transportation resources is not

efficient (that is to say when some parts of the network are over congested compared to other

points), those segments can be tolled or priced in order to shift the demand from the over utilized

areas to other less congested roads. This they acknowledged might increase the overall efficiency

of the system. It is in this direction that this work is investigating the traffic congestion problems

in the Central Business District of Accra in order to observe the prospects as well as the

problems of using a road pricing scheme. It is hoped that if this traffic management strategy

coupled with others are adopted and tailored towards the need of the Ghanaian scenario, the

problem of daily traffic congestion that have bedeviled our roads would be resolved to a large

extent.

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As Yildirim (2001) acknowledged, the significant contributions that road pricing could make

towards the reduction of traffic congestion cannot be over emphasized. The focus of his thesis

was on road pricing, which he states, is a traffic management tool that can be employed to charge

individuals based on the time, distance, and congestion level of the links they are using. He, for

example, mentioned the Marginal Social Cost Pricing (MSCP) tolls, which can be used to charge

the users of the roads for the negative externalities they impose on others. According to him, the

Marginal Social Cost Pricing (MSCP) toll is the most common form of road pricing and this is

what most economists term the First Best Pricing.

Yildirim further states that there have been several attempts to implement road-pricing projects.

Some of these attempts were successful while others failed because of strong public opposition.

He therefore acknowledged that the most important thing in the implementation phase has to do

with the public acceptance of the subject and it is only appropriate for a study of this nature to be

conducted to make the issues come into the public domain as well as to inform government

decision-making. In this direction, Yildirim’s suggestion becomes very relevant. He states that

users of the road should be informed and be persuaded that tolling the road will make life much

easier in terms of congestion and public transportation.

2.3 The Economists’ Perspective on Road Pricing

Economics, in the words of Hibbs (2003), is all about human behaviour in circumstances of

scarcity. In other words, how we humans behave and/or are likely to behave when confronted

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with the realities of scarcity. “Anything not scarce has no price” (Hibbs, 2003). Therefore, by

bargaining with prices this represents relative scarcity.

Hibbs (2003) stated that bargaining takes place in a market which may be physical but which for

most purposes is the set of cash relationships that exist in a community that may be larger or

smaller and is increasingly worldwide. He further explains that the function of the market and

the aim of economic policy is to achieve two essential objectives; ‘the efficient allocation of

scare resources of all kinds combined with the satisfaction of effective consumer behaviour’.

Yildirim (2001) also acknowledges that economic theory argues that to achieve economic

efficiency in the market, the price of the good or service should be at its full cost to society. It is

important to indicate here that the type of efficiency being discussed by these two authors is

quite different from the understanding of other experts. They are here referring to economic

efficiency. In this direction, economic efficiency is not used in the same way as an engineer or

as a doctor may understand the term. What is efficient in economic terms is best described as

what is optimal (Hibbs 2003). Economic efficiency is balancing all the expressions of demand

that are shown by our decisions in the market. Effective demand on the other hand, implies a

demand backed up with purchasing power and willingness to pay.

Drawing from the above discussions it is important for one to know that transport is a user of

land – one of the factors of production alongside labour and capital. And, the relative scarcity

of land is reflected in its price. While there may appear to be plenty of land, price always

reflects the strength of demand. In other words, land is a scarce resource based on price and

demand. As acknowledged by Hibbs (2003) in the following quotation: “The interaction of

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demand and supply means that the scarcity of land is at its greatest in cities and towns and its

lowest in rural areas.” As urban and transportation geographers and above all, as planners, this

should be of major concern to us.

Hibbs (2003) again stated that this scarce commodity, called, land is desired by a wide range of

users including transport. For example, land is desired for housing; industrial and commercial

uses; construction of hospitals; and other medical facilities; religious buildings; entertainment

and educational facilities; and open spaces (i.e. car parks, playing fields, cemeteries, etc) among

others.

Hibbs (2003) further explains that not all of the uses mentioned above lend themselves to the

pricing of land, and that is, of-course the way in which the market turns to allocative efficiency.

Public parks in London would never be used if there had to be an entry price. Public libraries and

many museums are also free at the point of use, and as with parks and open spaces, this reflects a

general agreement that some things should be available for use in this way, for the general

benefit of the community.

The obvious question, one is likely to pose, is why then should the transport industry fall under

the pricing system? As Hibbs (2003) states, the fact that land for transport is essential for the

functioning of the city does not give it the right to any special priority within the general pricing

system, but leaves it in competition with all other users of the land as a scarce commodity, the

degree of scarcity varying with the concentration of demand and other factors. He further stated

that the market for land, though, is highly imperfect, and roads, as users of land, have no value in

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the market since no one owns them. This is as a result the problem of opportunity cost of public

open space being one example, and one of the most serious weaknesses that arises in the

equation.

The situation therefore leads to what experts termed externalities or simply the external costs.

External costs in simple terms are all costs, which appear hidden and do not appear in a

company’s balance sheet and/or profit and loss account at the end of each year (Hibbs, 2003).

For example, a car, by burning petrol or diesel for energy emits pollutants that make the

surrounding fresh air ‘expensive’ in terms of the health hazards it poses to the public. Other

forms of environmental pollutions associated with the transport industry may be the following:

noise, visual intrusion, local air pollution, and the disposal of condemned/obsolete vehicles, each

of which imposes disutility upon people who suffer from their impacts. Accordingly, therefore,

all these costs are imposed on individuals but they are very difficult to be quantified or

measured. Another type of these external costs may be the consequences of accidents, the direct

impact of emissions on the environment (global warming, the depletion of the ozone, the direct

incidence of acid rain), and the emission of toxins which leads to poor health and actual

sicknesses, all of whose costs are left to go unpaid.

Hibbs’ (2003) statements and explanations are very much similar to that of Yildirim (2001). The

latter author for instance states that the social cost of travel includes both private and external

costs. The private costs, he said are direct such as gasoline costs, travel time, and automobile

users. The external costs too, he stated are those that travelers impose on other people such as

congestion, travel delays, air pollution, and accidents. Yildirim (2001) further explains that for

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as long as these externalities remain under priced or even not paid for as also identified by Hibbs

(2003), the road network is then not used efficiently. Hibbs (2003) also confirmed that these

external costs are contributive factors to congestion on the network and it should be borne in

mind that this problem of traffic congestion is not peculiar to only advanced nations, but

developing nations as well, hence the need to take pragmatic steps to solve the problem.

Yildirim (2001) quoted the following authors; Pigou (1920), Armstrong-Wright (1986), Luk and

Chung (1997), and Arnott and Small (1994), all of whom recommended Marginal Social Cost

Pricing (MSCP) tolls as the best form of road pricing that is equal to the negative externalities

imposed on other users in order to have an efficient utilization of the transportation network,

since economic theory argues that to achieve economic efficiency in the market the price of a

good, or a commodity, or a service should be at its full cost to society. The case made by these

authors is justified to a large extent. The question still remains whether transportation facilities

should continue to be provided free of charge to society? Should traffic congestion also be

allowed to continue to be an impediment to movement and to development? For this and other

reasons, one must do a critical analysis of the situation and come out with the best practice to

solve the problem.

To put the concerns expressed by economists more diagrammatically, let us take a look at the

relationship between demand for travel and price as demonstrated in the figure below. This was

adopted from Yildirim’s work.

Fig. 2.0: Supply-Demand Equilibrium in Traffic Networks.

Marginal Cost

38

Gen

eral

ized

C

ost p

er T

rip

Trip

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Average Cost

M CB

B CC C

CA A

Demand

tS tU Number of Trips

Source: Yildirim (2001)

The demand curve illustrates how much road users are willing to pay for road use. The area

below the demand curve is the total user benefits gained for the road travel. Yildirim (2001)

explained that an individual user entering the road would face only the cost he or she bears

which is usually a combination of vehicle operation costs and the cost of travel time. The cost, he

said, rises with the number of trips, while congestion increases the travel time and decreases

vehicle operating efficiency and travel speeds.

However, the marginal costs represent the effects of adding one extra vehicle or trip to the traffic

flow. Marginal costs include all private costs plus external ones such as delays, pollution, and

accidents. He went on and explained that the extra user affects all other users and the marginal

cost is always higher than the average cost. When the road demand approaches the capacity of

the road, there is a substantial increase in both travel time and delays to other vehicles.

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In figure 2.0 above, according to Yildirim (2001), users have an incentive to take the next trip

until the total demand‘t’ reaches ‘tU’. For‘t’ < ‘tU’ the benefit gained is less than the cost

incurred. In his estimation, when there is no incentive for the next user to take the trip i.e.

demand is at ‘tu’, the system reaches user equilibrium. However, at this demand level, economic

efficiency in the market is not yet achieved, and when the level of road use is equal to ‘tS’, the

marginal social cost of road travel is equal to the marginal user benefit given by the demand

curve. At point ‘ts’ the economic efficiency is now achieved and this is known as the system

optimal point. In order to have the user equilibrium at ‘ts’, economists argue that the users

should be charged a toll in the amount CB - CA, which is called the MSCP toll.

Yildirim (2001) further explains that the MSCP tolls are optimal in the sense of changing user

behaviour to system optimal behaviour. This makes MSCP tolls one of the most popular tools

for road pricing application. It is no wonder that MSCP tolls achieve the optimal utilization of

the transportation system. And, it should be noted that optimization refers to the economic

efficient use of the network. The issue of pricing the road could not have been stated more

accurately than in these words of John Hibbs (2003, pp.66):

“Despite the beneficial tendency of the market to bring about economic efficiency and the

satisfaction of effective demand, the transport industry, like any other, is subject to a

range of weaknesses that interfere in the process. These are largely the results of

circumstances of which the normal costing and pricing decisions cannot or do not take

account. So the costs and benefits involved are not brought to book. It is desirable that

these externalities be internalized as far as possible in the interest of efficiency and

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effectiveness, and one major step in this direction would be to introduce a charge or

price for the use of the roads. Other externalities such as pollution, accident costs, and

consequences for the environment more generally may prove more difficult to deal with

and this gives rise to pressure for intervention and statutory control…” (Hibbs, 2003.

pp.66)

In spite of the widely accepted economic position on this subject, there is however some

disagreement among some economists and other experts. The economist Crew (1969) disagreed

strongly with Tipping on his view about road pricing and its potential effect on reducing

congestion. The position of Tipping as quoted by Crew is as follows:

“It seems reasonable to suppose that sooner or later (depending on the elasticity of

demand and the valuation of time etc.) roads will become just as congested as they were

before the pricing system was introduced. Road users would then be demonstrating their

willingness to consume a service at the “cost” of providing it. Market forces in other

words would be operating to secure an optimal resource allocation, but what about the

rest of the population? There is no market in which they can purchase what they may

need; namely, protection from the undesirable features of motor traffic” (Crew, 1969).

Crew (1969), explains that Tipping’s conclusion as stated in the above quote on the scope of

road pricing is very much in opposition to the view held by most economists. He stated that first,

the analysis provided by Tipping is incorrect, and secondly that Pareto optimal solution for roads

depends on pricing and the state of the law.

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Crew further explains that Tipping’s idea that “the roads will become just as congested as they

were before the pricing scheme was introduced” is based on the view that the system cannot be

expanded and the misconception that once a price is derived it will never be changed. On this,

Crew explained that if demand for road space increases the marginal social cost of congestion

(e.g. pollution, accidents, etc.) will increase and the price will be raised in equality with this.

Crew also observed that Tipping’s concern on the need to protect the population from “…the

undesirable features of the motor traffic…” is undoubtedly an important point. However, in

pointing out the problem, he goes too far in casting doubt on the applicability of road pricing in

this case. It is now proposed to show that road pricing will play an integral part in the solution to

this problem. The solution depends on optimal pricing within the framework of the law. Crew,

therefore proposed that, two polar liability rules should be adopted in the case of automotive

travel-that the automobile users shall be liable in damages for all or none of the effects of its

operations. It is then left to the government to choose or decide on a set of liability rules

between these two extremes. A different Pareto optimum, he said, corresponds to each and every

liability rule. Hence, the choice is now left to the government on which liability rule to adopt and

then use pricing to attain the Pareto optimum.

This position Crew observed was quite different from what Tipping was saying. Tipping says:

“…pricing can then be used to achieve this chosen level of traffic”. Crew, however, stated that

the government cannot just decide upon some level of traffic and price to get this if they wish to

attain a Pareto optimum without deciding upon a liability rule, and once this is decided upon,

pricing can be used to attain the Pareto optimum, not some arbitrary level of traffic.

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To sum up, the economic discussions on the subject at stake demonstrates the potentiality of road

pricing in reducing traffic congestion in the transportation network. Nevertheless, there remain

some questions to be answered since there are disagreements and/or disenchantments among

certain economists. But one cannot doubt the potentialities of road pricing in checking traffic

congestion as well as helping governments finance new transportation networks and creating

public transportation amongst others.

Christainsen (2006) also observed that elementary economics teaches us that an excess demand

of a good or service can be eliminated if its price is raised sufficiently high. According to him the

demand for roadway use is no different. He observed that chronic traffic congestion indicates

that there is an excess demand for roadway use, but in most cases, there is no explicit price

charged for driving on streets and highways. Christainsen (2006) remarked that, gasoline (or

fuel) taxes may just mildly discourage driving (like in our case in Ghana, fuel taxes do not deter

people from acquiring vehicles and driving), but these fuel taxes, as acknowledged by the author,

do not charge vehicles according to time and place. Roadways, the author observed, may be

mostly free of vehicles at some times and places, but they may be extremely congested at other

times and locations.

Christainsen (2006) observed further that traffic patterns might change over the years. Road

pricing offers the possibility of targeting specific thoroughfares at specific times for more

intensive traffic congestion. If the prices charged bear a reasonable relationship to the supply and

demand for roadways, there are also payoffs with respect to information about driver preferences

and road construction. He acknowledged for instance that if prices are so high, some users might

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decide to car-pool, change time of their travel, or use an alternative form of transportation. In

short, a higher price is an indication to travelers to consider changing their behaviours, but the

people involved make their decisions based on their own information about circumstances of

time and place.

Christainsen (2006) further observed that some travelers may have close neighbours who

commute to the same general place or area at about the same time and may prefer to carpool.

Others may not know their neighbours very well, or their neighbours may commute to other

locations. In the presence of a higher price, some may prefer another form of transportation, and

some people may still not, but continue to drive in their own cars, but can take another route. He

intimated that, others cannot, and in the long run, some people may even change their residence.

Others, however, would still prefer to stay put. By contrast, a decision by public authority to set

aside a highway lane for carpool during rush hours presupposes that a certain amount of

carpooling is an appropriate response to the existence of traffic congestion (Christainsen, 2006).

The car-pool lane, he argued, may be underutilized, and the congestion problems of the other

highway lane may actually worsen because most drivers are now denied access to one of the

lanes.

The central issue, is whether it is better to rely on the information available to a relatively

handful of public officials, who then make decisions for everyone else, or to just establish a

market price to which thousands of people can respond on their own information. The fact here

is that, the potentials of road user pricing in curbing the congestion menace on our roads remain

incontestable.

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2.4 The Geography of Road Pricing Around the Globe

There have been several attempts to implement road pricing in many metropolitan cities around

the globe. The oldest of such attempts is the Singaporean example in June 1975. The

Singaporean experience has become associated with road pricing by most researchers, planners,

as well as players in transportation. Since 1975, many changes have been made to this scheme.

Initially the scheme started with a manual (paper license) scheme where paper permits were

issued out to motorists, but over the past thirty-one years it has evolved into an electronic system

that operates almost throughout the day charging motorists for as many times that they drove

pass a gantry.

Singapore with a population of 3,665,920 (a little bit more than that of the city of Accra) and

with a total vehicle number in the city of approximately 707,000 and the city’s size covering a

total of 647.5 square kilometers lost one-third of its potential city products due to travel delays

amongst other things (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2006). When the government in 1975

under the leadership of the then Prime Minister- Lee Kuan Yew realized the situation, they began

to enforce an area-licensing scheme for restraining traffic volumes. The road pricing scheme

combined with other vehicle fees (such as custom duties, taxes on petrol, etc.), and the limitation

placed on the number of vehicles in Singapore significantly reduced traffic and reduced air

pollution. Owing to the success that the first scheme achieved, the plan to implement the scheme

on all of Singapore’s major highways was brought to the table. For similar implementation,

however, Yildirim (2001) stated that certain prerequisites such as public acceptability,

appropriate technical features, and complementary transport strategies have to be met. The

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Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA, 2002) which the national authority assigned the

overall sectorial responsibility for the entire road transport system also stated that Singapore was

the first country to implement a type of area-based system which is considered by many as the

first road pricing model in the world. The SNRA (2002) report remarked that by the fall of 1998

it was made a completely automatic system called the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system.

SNRA (2002) further stated that the background for implementing road pricing in Singapore was

the high exploitation of land and rather high standard of living, and these factors made traffic

restrictions necessary. The purpose of implementing such a system as stated by the reports was

to regulate traffic in order to improve accessibility of the general public. The basis for the charge

was to achieve a target speed that gave improved accessibility. If the average speed drops, the

fees that one paid for using the roads as identified by the report increases and vice versa. The

fees are quarterly reviewed, and specified on electronic billboards at every gate. The

environmental components of the fee did not, however, commence with the introduction of the

system until the year 2001.

Again, on the Singaporean experience, electric and hybrid vehicles pay lower fees. The charges

vary between different locations, types of vehicles and hours. The revenue generated from the

system went into national accounts and is not distinguished from other state revenues. The state,

region, and the municipality being one and the same facilitated the political process for the

smooth implementation of road pricing and use of the revenues. Singapore’s road pricing

represents a model for many cities across the world, but one needs to device a system that suits

their own conditions and also acceptable by it’s citizens.

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Norway introduced road pricing in three of its urban centres. These are Oslo, the city of

Trondheim and Bergen. In 1986 Bergen became the first city in Norway to charge on existing

roads to finance new infrastructure. Eighty percent of the revenue realized from this toll system

was used to extend the road network, and the remaining twenty percent was used to improve the

city’s public bus or transport system. This is so different from the Oslo case, as the purpose of

the Oslo toll system was solely to finance new investments in the road network that otherwise

would have taken too long to complete.

In Bergen’s experience the toll only applies on weekends (daytime), which is not surprising,

because the most affected areas where traffic begins to build up is during the day. As was the

case in the Singaporean model, the Bergen city toll system also started operating as a manual

scheme, but was latter changed to the electronic system. SNRA (2002) reported that the

agreement by the city authorities of Bergen was originally planned to last until the turn of the

year 2002, but it has been prolonged for another ten years with the possibility of an additional ten

year extension.

Oslo’s Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system was launched in 1990. The reason for introducing

this policy was simply due to the increasing road congestion during the 1980’s. The purpose of

the Oslo road toll system was to finance new investments that otherwise would take too long to

complete. Accordingly, the Norwegian Parliament took a resolution to contribute with half their

financing. The remaining fifty percent of the required funds, as stated by the SNRA (2002)

report was to be covered by the road toll revenues for the period 1990 to 1997. As stated by this

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report, the emphasis of the Oslo example was on new road construction, and the purpose of the

new roads and passages was a transfer of traffic and thus alleviation of the situation in the central

part of the city.

Following this development a ring of 19 toll stations were set on all roads leading into central

Oslo. The payment was either an electronic or manual or through coin drops, but as at today,

most of the vehicles in Oslo pay electronically. There is a 24-hour charge for vehicles (except

emergency vehicles, scheduled buses, and motor cycles). It is interesting to note that as at 2002,

the fee was 15 NOK, and the cost for a monthly pass was around 400 NOK. Heavy trucks pay a

double fee. The tolls were to be revoked in 2007, but now a second period is being discussed

and will include more investments in public transport. What this, therefore, means is that the tolls

might remain for a longer time than it was originally planned. In the Oslo case, one reason to

extend or prolong the period of the toll system is that there is not enough time to finish the

investments stated in the first package and that new investments are now being discussed

(SNRA, 2002).

It should be stated here that in both cities’ experiences (i.e. Oslo and Bergen), there seems to

have been room for physical extension in the network, and there was a room to provide new road

investments, but in the case of Accra central, where the attention of this study is directed, there

can hardly be any physical extension in the network owing to the current land use. Under these

and other constraints, however, the most feasible solution or appropriate measure is to use part of

the revenues that would be generated from such a scheme to provide new investments in the road

network. Again, investments should also be made in public transport systems to cater for the

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urban and rural poor (i.e. to provide Metro Mass Transport which is currently in operation across

the country). By so doing, there would be alternative means (or modes) for both motorists and

the general public as a whole.

The city of Trondheim in Norway is also known to have adopted the road-pricing scheme since

the year 1988. The city of Trondheim has a population of 140,000 (VTPI, 2006). The interesting

thing to note is that the figure is much less than the population of Accra. Trondheim’s road

pricing charging area is approximately 4km by 6km. It is worth mentioning that Trondheim had

the world’s first electronic road pricing scheme for entering a city, and a total of seven toll zones.

Subsequently, this later came to be known as the Trondheim toll ring.

As was the case in Oslo and in Bergen, the purpose of the Trondheim scheme was to finance new

road infrastructure. However, part of the revenue was also used to finance public transportation,

environmental measures, and passages for pedestrians and bicycles were to be provided free of

charge to city dwellers. In the city of Trondheim, over 80% of those using the system have

transponders on their windshield (SNRA, 2002). At the same time, there were also payment

machines and a few manned stations. As far back as 2002, the charge was 15NOK per gate

passage. A monthly subscription was discounted by 20 to 50%. There was no extra charge for

additional passengers within the same hour (SNRA, 2002). According to this same report fees

applied between the hours of 6am and 6pm in the city of Trondheim and the charge is lower

during off peak hours. Again, it was stated in the report that there were ongoing trials as at the

same time with ten differentiated fees to control traffic levels, although this is limited by the

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existing legislation during that time. The ultimate aim of the Trondheim system is to achieve a

transition to a road-pricing scheme that controls traffic when the present agreement expires.

Trondheim therefore implemented what became known as ‘toll ring’ that surrounds the city’s

downtown area. The ‘toll ring’ has 12 toll stations and uses a total of 35 lanes. Each tollbooth

according to the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (VTPI) operates with an electronic card

system used by 80% of drivers entering the city and the other 20% use the coin machines or

magnetic strip cards, which are available at all twelve booths. Rates range from 0.62 U.S.

dollars to 1.56 U.S. dollars with a peak charge between 6am and 10am. It is also recorded that as

a result of these pricing schemes, inbound traffic has declined by 10% during toll periods while

non-toll period traffic has increased by 9%. Again, it is reported that weekday bus travel has

increased by 7%. As indicated in previous and/or earlier discussions, revenues are used for road

infrastructure, public transit, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities.

Some of the benefits of the Trondheim road pricing scheme as stated by the Victoria Transport

Policy Institute (VTPI) were the following: immediate dip in peak rush hour traffic by 10%;

revenues from the tolls have also been used to improve roads and build by-passes to cut traffic

congestion. The income is also used to give commuters other options by upgrading public

transits, building bicycle paths and even providing two hundred free bicycles for use in

downtown Trondheim. According to the VTPI, initial public opinion of about 72% opposed the

implementation of road pricing. This figure dropped to 48% two months after the launch of the

scheme, and reduced further to 36% in 1996.

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Still in Europe, Italian cities have since 1992 had the opportunity to introduce entrance checks

and, levy a fee to protect the cultural and historical values and monuments of their cities (SNRA,

2002). This was not to reduce traffic congestion per se as was the case in other places

mentioned. However, the Italian case had an implicit purpose of reducing traffic congestion in

the cities. In Rome for example, the so-called ‘blue zone’ has existed since 1989 as a means to

protect half of the city core. Between 6:30am and 6pm Monday through Friday, and between

2pm and 6pm on Saturdays, a part of the city center was closed to all vehicles not having a

special permit (SNRA, 2002).

So then, in Rome everyone living and working within this zone and certainly other persons

(except visiting clients, medical doctors, etc) can get permission to drive into the zone. The

report also further states that since 1988, however, everyone but the residents have to pay for

permission that costs a bit over 300 Euro per year, which corresponds to the cost of an annual

public transport pass. The check is completely done manually.

In the city of London, it was noted that since February 17, 2003 authorities have charged a

5pounds daily fee for driving private vehicles in an eight square mile central area during

weekdays as a way to reduce traffic congestion and raise revenues for transport improvements.

However, road pricing has been discussed for many years until now. The background to the

London plan was that the mayor, Ken Livingstone, considered the traffic situation to be the most

important issue in the elections. An automated system checks vehicles entering the charging

zone against a database of motorists who have paid the fee. According to the report, despite

considerable controversy, the programme was implemented without major problems, and has

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substantially reduced traffic congestion. It has also improved bus and taxi service, and is

generating revenues.

A previous government, as noted by the report, established the legal possibility for road pricing.

Londoners, as it was noted, considered congestion to be the most urgent traffic issue since

motorists in central London spend about 50% of their travel time in queues. So, the purpose of

the London plan was primarily to reduce congestion in the road network but at the same time, to

obtain revenue. The revenue will then be used to subsidize traffic investments in both road

network and public transport at least for the first ten years (SNRA, 2002). The charge levied on

trips in central London (an area of about the same size as the inner city of Stockholm) between

7am and 6:30pm on weekdays was 5 pounds per day for cars and 15 pounds for trucks. The fee

is per day and remains the same no matter how much you drive during the day. Residents of

central London reserve the right to buy a discounted weekly pass. Buses, taxis, motorcycles, and

emergency vehicles were exempted under the scheme. There were other exemptions for a low

annual or one time fee for the disabled and for the environmentally adopted cars.

In central London the technique adopted was not toll stations. Instead, it involves taking a photo

of all vehicles traveling in the zone. The number on the registration plates of the vehicle was

compared with a register of vehicles having paid in advance. Cameras were placed at the

boundary as well as within the zone. It should, however, be stated that the proposed scheme of

Accra, need not necessarily start or begin with all of these advanced technologies. It may simply

begin with a manual system as was the case in Singapore and later be fully automated. In any

case, the proposed Accra scheme should follow the basic principle of tax collection; where the

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expenditure incurred in collecting the tax (road pricing in this case) should not exceed the

revenue to be collected. In this way, we can be assured that there would be excess revenue to be

used in financing the transport sector.

SNRA (2002) report acknowledges that at the time of compiling their report, there were already

advanced plans to implement road pricing in many places all over the world. In Britain, apart

from the city of London, an additional number of British cities (the city of Bristol, Leeds and

Edinburgh) were close to finalizing plans on the subject. Most definitely, London’s experience

would be of great importance to those cities as well as to other cities around the globe seeking to

implement the scheme. It is noted that other cities such as Dublin in Ireland, Auckland in New

Zealand, and Tokyo in Japan are also seriously discussing road price implementation (SNRA,

2002).

We have so far been discussing the geographic spread of road user pricing, more specifically,

talking about where there were attempts to implement the scheme, and where there has been

some appreciable amount of success in the effort to implement the scheme. It is now time to take

a look at some of the proposals that were abandoned after plans were far advanced in

implementing the scheme. The abandonment of such projects was due to several reasons, some

of which have already been mentioned in earlier paragraphs. Yildirim (2001) for instance

associated some of these to strong public opposition. This reason, however, seems to be the

single most common grounds for abandoning such projects as we shall soon see. On this point,

Yildirim recommended that the most important thing in the implementation phase of road pricing

is the public acceptance of the road-pricing project. In this direction he said;

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“The users should be informed and persuaded that tolling the roads will make life easier

in terms of congestion and public transportation” (Yildirim, 2001:pp.8).

Again, in Hong Kong the first attempt at introducing an automatic road pricing system with an

electronic charge to control traffic was already made in the 1980’s. Subsequently, an experiment

including two thousand five hundred (2500) vehicles was initiated in 1983 where a system of

three zones and different fees for five periods of the day were reviewed. Then in 1985, two years

later, the proposal became a full-scale implementation (SNRA, 2002).

However, the anxiety that the system would reveal a person’s identity led to a public opinion

against it, and the resolution to operationalize the system was revoked. In fact, at this point, one

can easily tell the truism in Yildirim’s comment- that “…the public should be informed and

persuaded…” Hong Kong’s quest to implement road pricing to control traffic congestion failed

simply on grounds of public opposition and/or on the basis of integrity. Hau (1990), states that

another reason for the negative opinion in the Hong Kong experience was that the technology

which at the time was to be adopted was rather undeveloped, and its functionality was doubtful.

Again, another reason why this issue of integrity became so important was probably the

agreement that Hong Kong should be reunited with China, which generated fear for a system that

could be used for other purposes (SNRA, 2002).

Yildirim (2001) also on Hong Kong’s case study stated three reasons for the failure of road price

implementation. First, he stated that the timing was not good. There was noticeably less

congestion due to a new-elevated highway in 1985-1996. Secondly, a recession occurred during

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the mid 1980’s in Hong Kong. The political situation was not clear due to negotiations with

China, and community participation and consultation were not well handled. Last but not the

least, the government did not have a well-defined revenue redistribution programme for the toll

revenue.

Notwithstanding the difficulties that the Hong Kong scheme encountered, the SNRA report

stated that new studies and proposals are still being presented. In 2001 for instance the report

mentioned that a proposal of a zonal and time differentiated electronic road pricing system was

made. But here again, the question of acceptance was still very sensitive, and it was considered

at the time that road pricing would not be necessary until the year 2006.

Another example of road pricing scheme that was abandoned after implementation is that of

Stockholm. The Dennis Agreement in the 1990’s, which involved considerable investments in

both public transport and roads in Stockholm, was abandoned in 1997. The package in the 1990s

also included road tolls both to finance part of the infrastructure and as a means of controlling

traffic. The tolls were constructed as a ring around an inner circular passage for traffic going

into central Stockholm. As in the Hong Kong case study, the Stockholm experience was also

abandoned for many reasons. But to quote from the SNRA report; “one of the main reasons was

a matter of road tolls-it was a politically explosive issue already from start with a strong

opposing opinion”. There were several reasons for the negative opinion as well. In one strand,

residents of some municipalities feared that they would be excluded from the road network, and

there were also apprehensions that the tolls would strike those low-income residents the most.

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Furthermore, there were also anxieties that anonymity could not be guaranteed. At the same

time, another opinion grew among the environmental movements that the system was not

designed as an effective means of regulating traffic but rather as a financing method. Opposition

from the politicians and the public finally became too strong. I wish to state that it is basically

the issue of acceptance, which was found to be insurmountable.

Another abandoned road pricing project was in the Netherlands. Until the year 2002, the

Netherlands had plans to introduce distance-based road charges to regulate traffic. Their idea

was based on kilometer-based charges to replace part of the existing vehicle excises from the

year 2004 onwards. However, the elections in 2002 brought about a new political majority in

July 2002, with a policy that such a system would not be introduced until accessibility to both

road network and public transport had been considerably improved (SNRA, 2002).

Subsequently, the budget of that year, 2002, did not include any financing of a road pricing

system in the Netherlands (www.roadpricing.nl). All that this means in practice was that there

would be no kilometer-based charge in the near future in the Netherlands but not necessarily the

scraping of road charges completely. It is necessary to make the distinction between the

Netherlands case, and those previously mentioned in earlier paragraphs. In the former case, it is

only the distance-based (kilometer-based) charge that was to be abandoned and not the whole

concept of road pricing. This is because vehicle excises are also a form of indirect road pricing.

Yildirim also acknowledges some difficulties that road pricing schemes faced in the United

States. According to him, there have been many obstacles to the implementation of road-pricing

projects in the United States. Many of these obstacles he terms as political and institutional

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problems. Jones and Harvey (1992), and Evans (1992) as stated by Yildirim (2001), all argue

that opposition for not implementing road pricing is not caused by technical reasons, but rather

political - a concern which borders on public acceptability. Yildirim further stated that in the case

of road pricing, public knowledge about what such schemes might achieve or how they might

operate is rather low. This should, therefore, serve as a guide to any city or nation attempting to

adopt road pricing as a scheme to help manage traffic congestion.

Still on the United States experience, Yildirim noted that the public has several objections to the

road pricing idea. First and foremost, the public saw road pricing as an additional tax burden. It

not only discriminates against the low-income driver but also causes other problems such as

invasion of privacy (Yildirim 2001). Several other authors suggested that road pricing would be

more acceptable if it is introduced in the form of a road charge in which the money raised is used

for transport and environmental improvement.

In an article written by Dan Weikel in The Los Angeles Times in 2002, he acknowledged that

political and financial problems have led many state leaders to conclude that California’s nearly

two-decade experiment with toll roads has failed, despite fervent hopes and vast investments. He

further stated that when the state first embraced toll roads, think tanks, politicians, and

government officials could not find enough superlatives to describe them. The article also

acknowledges that toll roads whether government run or privately owned were the transportation

sectors’ future and an effective way to build highways when state funds were running low.

Therefore, in Orange County, the legislature quickly and enthusiastically helped in creating

seven of the toll roads in the County.

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The story, however, is different today. The Express Lanes have generated such a political

nightmare that the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) wants to buy the project

and put it into public hands, (VTPI report, 2006). It has been documented that as a result of all

these disenchantments and public opposition in the state of California, in the Orange County for

instance, the state recently terminated the franchise agreement for the proposed extension of the

Orange freeway – an eleven-mile road that was to follow the Santa Ana River connecting the

Santa Ana and San Diego freeways.

The lesson one needs to draw from the American-Californian example for instance is not the

failure per se, but what actually led to the so-called failure. The unique thing was that most of

the toll roads in that state were privately owned, the SR-91 express lane is a typical example.

This perhaps led to a change in purpose from managing traffic congestion to solely raising funds.

2.5 Benefits and Cost Issues of Road Pricing

In spite of the much disenchantment, oppositions, and to some extent the doubts by some people,

road pricing as a traffic management strategy, to control or manage congestion has many benefits

that have been attested to by many experts in the field of transportation. Congestion pricing is a

particularly effective congestion reduction strategy. According to Goodwin (1997), ‘many

economists consider urban traffic congestion virtually unsolvable without some sort of

congestion pricing’. At the same time, however, Shefer and Rietvald (1997) stated that ‘shifting

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vehicle traffic to other routes or times provide few other benefits, causes spill over impacts (i.e.

increased traffic on other roads) and many increase crash costs’.

As stated by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (VTPI), road pricing that reduces total

vehicle travel can reduce road and parking facility costs, increase road safety, protect the

environment, encourage more efficient land use, and improve community livability. As an

empirical example, Richards (2006) noted that the central London congestion charging scheme

resulted in a 12% reduction in total vehicle kilometers, and a 30% reduction in car traffic, with a

28% reduction in crashes. Mopeds and motorbikes journey’s also increased by 10-15% while

crashes decreased by 4% and pedestrian crash injuries declined by 6% (Richards, 2006).

Levine and Garb (2000) said road pricing meant to fund an additional highway capacity, has the

tendency to increase total automobile travel ‘rebound effect’. They also stated that it has the

tendency to increase downstream traffic congestion, parking costs, crashes, pollution, and

sprawl, all of which I would like to term rebound costs, in that they are bringing back the very

problem one is looking for solution to overcome. Expanding highway size and traffic volume

tends to reduce traffic liability of communities that it cuts through (Levine and Garb, 2000).

Value pricing and High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes all of which are also a form of road pricing

have the tendency to increase transportation options. On unpriced roads, travelers have no

alternative to being delayed by congestion. However, value pricing and HOT allow travelers to

choose between driving in congestion, avoiding congestion by right sharing or avoiding

congestion by paying a toll. According to Kain (1994) this allows individual consumers to

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choose the option that best meets their needs for a particular trip. Kain further stated that it also

tends to improve transportation choice indirectly by increasing demand for ridesharing and

transit services.

According to the VTPI, road pricing increases motorists direct costs but it is said that these costs

are economic transfers; i.e. payment by motorists are offset by revenues to the tolling agency or

government (i.e. evaluating pricing). The overall consumer impact from road pricing depends on

how revenue is used-if returned as rebates or reductions in other taxes, or used in other ways that

consumer’s value, consumers maybe no worse off financially. Resource costs, as identified by

the VTPI, are primarily the transaction costs of collecting fees (what I referred to earlier on as

basic taxation principle), including costs to highway agencies and to users. Toll collection costs

range from about 10% of total tolling revenue for electronic toll collection up to 40% for

tollbooths. Toll collection that requires motorists to stop at booths causes motorists delays and

increases energy consumption and air pollution. In this direction, therefore, the VTPI noted that

new electronic tolling could reduce these transaction costs. The tables below are the summary of

the benefits and costs issues as noted by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (VTPI).

Table 2.0 Benefit Summary- Toll Funded Roads

Objectives Rating Comments

Congestion Reduction 3 Increases road capacity and reduces demand

Road & Parking

Savings

-2 Increases total Vehicle travel and facility costs

Consumer savings -1 Increases direct consumer costs, but reduces indirect road

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costs

Transport choice 1 Increases motorists’ choice if untolled roads are also

available or if pricing improves travel alternatives.

Road safety -1 Induced travel and higher traffic speeds can increase crash

costs.

Environmental

protection

-1 Induced travel increases emissions

Efficient land use -1 Induced travel can increase sprawl

Community livability -1 New urban highways may have negative impacts.

Source: VTPI, 2006.

Table 2.1 Benefit Summary- Congestion Pricing

Objectives Rating Comments

Congestion Reduction 3 Increases road capacity and reduces peak-period demand

Road & Parking

Savings

3 Increases total vehicle travel and avoid the need to add

capacity.

Consumer savings -1 Increases consumer direct costs, but overall impacts depend

on how revenues are used.

Transport choice 3 Increases motorists’ choice and improves travel

alternatives.

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Road safety 2 Reduced vehicle travel reduces crashes.

Environmental

protection

2 Reduced travel reduces emissions

Efficient land use 2 Reduced vehicle travel reduces sprawl

Community livability 2 Reduced vehicle travel increases community livability

Source: VTPI, 2006

Note that, rating is from 3(very beneficial) to –3(very harmful). An ‘0’ indicates no impact or mixed impact.

From the above tables, therefore, one can clearly and easily tell the merits of the various forms of

road pricing and the effects that any of them would or is likely to bring to the populations of any

given place. Again, it has been found in many researches that road pricing sometimes is

proposed as a means to reduce the environmental burden of road traffic. And the scheme if

implemented in the proposed area under investigation (Accra Central) would go a long way in

solving some of these problems.

The main purpose of most road pricing systems is to reduce congestion in the road network

and/or to finance investments in the transportation systems. In some cases, for example in the

Netherlands and in London, we learned that the system has been suggested to design the charges

to also include environmental measures additional to the environmental gain of reduced

congestion. This practice, in many circles has been referred to as the differentiated fees,

corresponding with the level of emissions of the vehicles. An example of such a system was seen

in Singapore in 2001 where electrical vehicles paid a fee 20% lower, and hybrid vehicles also

paid 10% lower than the normal fees paid by other vehicles. It is also on record that, the cities of

Oslo, and Toronto have different charges for different types of vehicles (for instance trucks,

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motorcycles and privates cars), but there are major technical obstacles to differentiate charges by

environmental category in the same fashion.

Still on the environmental benefits and cost issues, the system (road pricing) usually proposed or

implemented has relatively small impact on the total number of vehicular kilometers. The local

effects in terms of emissions and air contamination may, on the contrary, be relatively

considerable (SNRA, 2002). Inner city charges (like in the case of this study) may, for instance,

reduce the traffic in these areas by 20 to 30% according to the same report. The report also

acknowledges that since the emissions of hydrocarbons and particles dramatically diminish when

the traffic flows, it may be of great importance for the most affected streets, the total effects then

for a whole region, according to the same report, are, however, relatively small. Here a reduction

of 2 to 3% is typical (SNRA, 2002). Thus the total emissions at a regional level remain almost

the same.

Furthermore the SNRA report also explains that reduction of emissions is, in reality, somewhat

higher than the reduction in number of vehicle kilometers. This, they discovered is due to the fact

that better traffic flow causes less emissions per kilometer driven. Emissions such as volatile

organic compounds (VOC) and carbon monoxide (CO); both are main compounds in smog- and

are around 250% higher at congestion than when the traffic flows (Schiller, 1998). Hence the

quality of the air is directly linked with the congestion situation. The magnitude of the reduction

of the emissions depends on the size of the share of the reduced traffic in and out of queues.

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In the actual sense, the effect of road pricing on emissions is thus fairly small on the whole.

Instead, the big environmental gain is that the need for new roads diminishes, as is claimed by

many (the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation), who consider that new roads primarily

lead to an increase in number of car trips. Available studies, therefore, indicate that the risk of

an incident (in terms of number of incidents per vehicle kilometers) does not seem to increase

when congestion is reduced and the speed thereby increases (Satterthwaite, 1981). However, the

consequences of incidents can be worse at higher speeds. The expected increase of speed is,

however, relatively limited, and it is doubtful if this effect has any practical significance.

Consequently, this, as stated by the SNRA report, implies that reduced congestion caused by

road pricing would not have any significant effects on traffic safety. On the other hand, the

SNRA states that a possible effect is that the number of incidents at low speed is reduced; this

should have significant effects on whiplash injuries. However, we have been unable to find any

study that confirms this position.

Another issue regarding benefits and costs as per the effects of road pricing on localization and

land prices is said to be a complex interaction process between travel pattern, and supply and

demand of land, housing and premises. There are comparatively few empirical studies on these

effects, partly due to the difficulties of measuring such slow changes, and partly due to the

overall lack of practical experience from road pricing. On the other hand, there is relatively

strong consensus among scientists about the main fundamentals of effects to be expected, based

on theoretical studies and computations. The SNRA Report, road pricing generally makes car

trips more expensive. The increased transportation costs urge households as well as companies,

in theory, to strive to reduce their car traveling and avoid congested roads. This must also include

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reduction of the travel distance, which ought to cause a need to move closer to destinations.

Families, for example should try to locate closer to their work places and to commercial areas

centres.

In a city centre, this probably means an increased demand for housing and premises in central

areas. Areas with a good supply of public transportation should become more attractive, which in

most cities also ought to contribute to an increased demand in the city centre. The increased

demands for central localization should, on one hand, result in rising prices for housing and

premises, and on the other hand, an increased supply (through new constructions and/or

increased disposal). In summary, an increased demand is to be expected in central areas, while

the demand will decline in peripheral areas (Wheaton 1974; 1998), and Eliasson and Mattsson

(2001). Changes in localization and transportation patterns are, however, a result of a

complicated interaction between different forces, which means that the final result is dependent

on, for example, the exact design of the road pricing system and the localization structure of the

city prior to the implementation.

According to the SNRA report; ‘experience from theoretical studies, simulations and modeling is

unambiguous: the centralizing forces dominate over the decentralizing forces. The result is that

households, commerce and workplaces are driven towards the city centre- the ‘city’, therefore,

they say, shrinks’. These experiences must, however, be considered with caution. There are two

important reservations; first and foremost, is that detailed results are dependent on the city

structure. Most theoretical studies have handled the ‘mono-centric’ cities where all workplaces

are located in the centre. Simulation studies with a more realistic city structure have shown that

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in some cases it is more semi-central areas (close suburbs) that increase their attraction rather

than the actual city core. These results are, however, in turn dependent on the infrastructure in

the city surroundings, for example if there is a ring road or not. As the report stated further, even

if the major result still show that the city core in a wider aspect becomes more attractive, it

requires detailed studies, where the city’s specific requirements are considered in order to more

precisely determine what can be expected to happen. Secondly, there is also reservation that most

public studies deal with the consequences of ‘optimal’ congestion pricing, i.e. charges are

obtained wherever a queue situation occurs.

2.6 World Bank Study on Road Pricing-Toll Roads

According to the VTPI (2006) document, a World Bank study by Estache; Romero and Strong,

in 2000 came out with the following conclusions on the subject we are dealing with;

“The demand for road services will continue to grow and hence so will the need for

investment. Worldwide, the stock of motor vehicles is growing at nearly three percent per

year. Since the number of vehicle kilometers traveled tends to grow somewhat faster than

the stock of motor vehicles, this implies that at least for some segments of the road

network, the demand prospects are quite good. The fast urbanization of the developing

world adds another dimension that cannot be ignored and explains the strong demand for

urban access roads in many of the most populated countries of the world” (VTPI, 2006:

pp.26-27).

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The report (VTPI, 2006:pp.27) ascribes the following further comment to the World Bank; “The

challenge here is to bet on the right horses. Demand will increase but only on some segments of

the network and it is tempting for governments to oversell a specific road based on aggregate

traffic growth prospects. Even holding the effects of toll levels constant, traffic volumes are very

sensitive to income and economic growth. The failure to recognize this may be one of the main

reasons why so many toll road projects have failed or ended in bitter renegotiations.

Motorization and vehicle kilometers traveled tend to increase faster than income levels. This

high income elasticity, especially for leisure trips, makes toll roads especially sensitive to

macroeconomic conditions. For roads that serve export activities, exchange rate changes can

drastically affect trade, leading to major changes in demand patterns”.

It is important to note at this very point that the World Bank’s sponsored study by those

researchers is only serving as a guide for countries that want or would like to implement such a

policy (road pricing) to help check or manage traffic congestion or to, better still manage traffic

congestion in their cities. Such nations are to take some of these comments into consideration,

and this is not to say; the policy is not to be encouraged or is bad to be implemented by any

particular group of persons or cities. The caution here is to make sure that the traffic volumes are

properly forecast to pave the way for smooth implementation of such a policy. Again, the needed

researches should be done first and foremost in order to input the concerns of the general public

into such a policy (Yildirim, 2001).

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CHAPTER THREE

PROFILE OF STUDY AREA/ ROUTES

3.1 Chapter Overview

The profile of the study area and/ or the routes defining the area covered by the study has been

discussed here. We have also defined extensively the main routes leading to and from the Accra

Central Business District. The character and/or the nature of the roads have been looked into

with reference to some engineering works such as road markings. Attempts have also been made

to look into the population of the area under investigation in terms of its socio-economic and

politico-cultural nature. The demarcation of the CBD was done on the basis of it being the main

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commercial centre of the city; the centre of major retailing activities; the locus for service

industries, business offices and financial institutions, and as would soon be seen, it has being a

zone with limited residential quarters or land uses. The CBD is also the area with high

concentration of both vehicular and human traffic movement and an area with many public

buildings distinct from it’s environs. This demarcation would serve a great deal of purpose in

terms of providing us with much detailed information about the population in that section of the

city and the activities that go on there. The AMA had this to say during our interview with them,

‘the total taxi population of the central business district alone, on daily basis is around ten

thousand.’

The figure quoted above excludes private cars and the mini buses (trotro), and of course, that of

the metro mass transport buses as well as all other forms of buses that operate within the city of

Accra. When one puts all these figures together, we are then talking about a vehicle population

of over fifteen thousand (15,000) that move to and from, the central business district on daily

basis. The figure, as have been demonstrated in chapter one is more than the capacity of the road

infrastructure that exists in the area under investigation. Efforts have also been put into mapping

the social; commercial; and the land use character of the area. Furthermore, there were

discussions on the differences and similarities between some of the routes; places; and the

localities situated within the study area. Templates showing the nature of traffic congestion on

some routes have also been displayed.

3.2 Population of the Accra Metropolitan Area

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The Accra Metropolitan Area within which the area for the study falls, as at the last Population

and Housing Census in 2000 has a total human population of 1,658,937. This area has the largest

population (57.2%) amongst the remaining districts in the region. The male population was

817,378 and that of female was 441,564. But the total population of the Greater Accra Region

stood at 1,945,284 as of the 2000 Population and Housing Census. The figure shows that persons

15years and above, which constitute about 70.8%, formed the economically active population.

However, 183,343 were unemployed. The interpretations one can give here is that, as incomes of

the 70.8% working force increases and if more and more people join this group, the tendency to

acquire vehicles (all things being equal) grows, thereby leading to significant increases in the

number of vehicles in the streets. This phenomenon would then lead to a concomitant increase in

traffic, hence a reduction in average speed and the creation of congestion in the face of

arithmetic increase in the provision of road infrastructure. The census report also stated that the

Accra Metropolitan area was completely urban. This area is also said to be the most urbanized

amongst the other districts in the region. The researcher, however, believes that this was as a

result of Ghana’s statistical definition of an urban area, which uses a population threshold of

5,000 people and above, as a benchmark to determine whether a place is an urban area or a rural

area. On the other hand, if the issue of provision of social amenities and infrastructure comes in,

the picture might be different.

As a centre of attraction, Accra’s population has spiraled significantly over the years. With a

population of about 636,667 in 1970, which increased to 969,195 in 1984 and 1,658,937 in 2000

(GSS, 2002), Accra, Ghana’s capital since 1877, is today one of the most populated and fast

growing metropolises in Africa. This has resulted from its consistently remarkable annual growth

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rate over the years. Available data reveals that the annual growth rate of AMA was 5% within

1960 – 1970, 3.1% during 1970 – 1984, and 3.4% in the period 1984 – 2000 (GSS, 2005b: P.

400). A growing urban population inadequately served by public transport system, and declining

standards in public transport systems would certainly result in increase in car ownership causing

traffic congestion on the roads as can be observed in the city. Unfortunately, the census

population figures do not show the daily movement of people into Accra. It is estimated that the

city accommodates between 2.5 million and 3 million people in terms of socio-economic

activities aside the residential population captured by the 2000 Population and Housing Census.

The area enclosed by the cordon selected for this study is bounded by the Ring Road West

through the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to the Obetsebi Lamptey Circle; turning to the Graphic

Road to the Trust Bank Headquarters at the traffic light on the Okai Mensah Lane; and then

following the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue road in front of the Swanzy Shopping Arcade, right

down to the High Street at Accra Central; then turning left towards the 28 th February Road near

the seat of government (the Castle); through the Lokko Road in Osu; to the Liberation

Square/Roundabout through the Ridge Hospital Road to the Kanda Overpass linking the Ring

Road East and back to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle area. Within this described area (known as

the CBD), are many other roads that also feed into the main ones as described above. The High

Street is undergoing physical extension. But this would not be able to absorb the crowded

number of vehicles that flood the area during the inter peak periods mentioned earlier.

Nevertheless, there would be some form of alleviation in the level of congestion though.

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Using the Nkrumah Circle as the focal point, the territorial road of the CBD turns east (through

the Ring Road East) to the Kanda Overpass, where it then turns south along the Kanda Extension

to the Ridge Circle as Fig. 3.0 shows. The road then extends along the Ridge Extension Road to

the Liberation Circle and onward through Lokko road to the Osu Township as illustrated in the

figure below. The boundary further stretches along the 28th February Road to join the High Street

and then turns north through the High Street Extension road to Kwame Nkrumah Avenue. From

this point, the road stretches westward along the Graphic Road to the Obetsebi Lamptey Circle,

and then turns right to join the Ring Road West Extension to get back to the Nkrumah Circle as

described in the earlier paragraph.

Almost all the territorial roads of the CBD mentioned above are two-lane dual carriageways. The

exceptions are:

the Liberation Circle to Osu road;

from Osu Township through the 28th February Road to the High Street; and

the High Street through to the Graphic Road.

As regards the differences and similarities between the traffic situation (i.e. in terms of the traffic

volumes/vehicular movements) and commercial activities on these arteries, that section of the

Graphic road starting from the Obestebi Lamptey Circle to the Trust Bank Headquarters area

along the Okai Mensah Lane experiences heavy vehicular movements during the two inter peak

periods of traffic congestion (i.e. both morning rush hours-7: 30 to 10:00 AM, and in the

evenings-4.30 to 5.30 PM). Average speed of vehicles using this route was not included in the

field survey, but responses from motorists indicate that the average speed is around 10 to

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12km/hr, and this is a result of the congestion situation. It should, however, be mentioned that,

the responses in support of the evening traffic situation was not as bad as compared to the former

(i.e.7.30 to 10.00AM). This, perhaps, was the case because, workers in this area have become

used to the congestion situation, so they leave at times they deem appropriate and most

convenient in order to escape the congestion that awaits them. Figure 3.0 shows the areas

mentioned above.

Fig. 3.0: Road Map of Accra-the study area

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Source: An extract from a Map by the Ghana Survey Department (2004)

Furthermore, that section of the network (along the Graphic Road) has most of the businesses

and/or commercial activities taking place along it. In fact, one of Ghana’s biggest used vehicle

parts dealers (i.e. Abossey Okai) is located around this section of the study area. Consequently,

this place attracts a lot of shoppers and all manner of people from all parts of the country and

neighbouring countries as well. Also, most of the auto car dealer garages are found along this

area. All these factors and many others contribute to the congested nature of that section of the

road network. On road markings, there are only few visible ones meant for pedestrians, but there

are hardly any footbridges to carry pedestrians across to the other side of the road. This situation

allows pedestrians to interfere with vehicular movements even when congestion becomes worse.

A very sharp contrast is the situation on the Lokko road from the Liberation circle through to

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Osu. Along this artery, there are not much heavy presence of departmental shops and commercial

activities as there are on the earlier road described above. However, during the two inter peak

periods described earlier, there is heavy traffic congestions on almost all of the roads in the area.

The Lokko road is a single artery, whilst the latter (Graphic Road) is a dual carriage road. The

Lokko road also has Ghana’s Legislature or Parliament House located along it. The Accra

International Conference Centre (AICC) and the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium are located along

this street. There are also few residential houses situated along the road, where occasionally the

activities of the natives generate congestion in the area. The Military Cemetery can also be found

in this area along the road where there are occasional activities leading to congestion, which in

most cases last for few hours. A combination of all these factors along this road makes

congestion (a reduction in average speed) comparable to those of other arteries within the

network. Pictures showing traffic along some of the roads have been displayed below.

The roads within the study area can hardly be physically extended in order to contain the heavy

vehicular movements, hence the culmination into the heavy vehicular traffic movements and the

subsequent congestion especially during peak-hours, (i.e. early mornings; 7.30-10:00am and

evenings; 4.30-5.30pm), mostly from Mondays to Fridays. Added to this, is the trading activities

ranging from petty trading to hawking taking place in this area.

3.3 Pictures of Traffic Congestion on some Roads/routes

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Plate 3.0 showing a long traffic queue on a section of the Lokko Road

Plate 3.1 showing heavy congestion on a section of the Graphic road

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Plate 3.2 showing heavy congestion on a section of the High Street in Accra Central

Plate 3.3: showing congestion on a section of the High Street with vendors taking advantage of the situation to sell.

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Plate 3.4 showing vendors taking advantage of the congestion situation as vehicles are locked up.

Plate 3.5 showing traffic congestion in Accra Central with a metro mass transport bus caught up in the jam

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Plate 3.6 a tro-tro driver and his mate pick up a passenger in the middle of the road whilst the mate struggles for a seat. This is a typical human action that causes congestion on the roads.

Plate 3.7 showing that section of the High Street under construction, and the heavy congestion on the other section of the road

As observed above, the Accra Metropolitan Area is Ghana’s biggest, most diverse and most

cosmopolitan city. It is also considered as the second largest industrial centre in Ghana. The

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influential nature of the city relative to other parts of the country is very palpable and unrivaled.

It is therefore not surprising that about half of all the motor vehicles in Ghana are located in the

city (www.ghanadistricts.com).

The primacy of the Accra Metropolitan Area as an administrative, educational, industrial and

commercial centre attracts people from all over Ghana and the outside world. This continues to

be the major force responsible for congestion, both human and vehicular movements, in the city

or the Central Business District in particular. The government of the day has responded

positively by instituting the Metro Mass Transport (MMT) scheme to help alleviate the problem,

but clearly the problem is still glaring. As at the time of this research, the MMT had a total of

two hundred and seventy five (275) buses operating throughout the country. On September 12,

2007, The Urban Transportation Project, which seeks to reduce traffic congestion in some major

cities in Ghana, was launched as one of the means of finding solutions towards the problem of

road traffic congestion.

3.4 The Central Business District of Accra

As the hub of Ghana’s economic activities, Accra Central has a concentration of complex

offices, huge and comparatively affluent markets, government buildings and/ or ministries and

institutions, historic sites and tourist attractions, decent restaurants, nightclubs and hotels, and

other attractions responsible for the influx of large number of people into the area on daily basis.

Simply put, it serves as an important destination for a wide range of people with varied intents

and purposes. The CBD stretches over a wide area of land and has a comparatively well-

networked road infrastructure in relation to other parts of the country. The primary road network

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in the area radiates out from the central area (Accra Central – Kwame Nkrumah – Kaneshie Road

corridor). It is estimated that about 80% of vehicular traffic has this road corridor as their

destination (Department of Urban Roads, 2001 as quoted at www.ghanadistricts.com).

The roads are also paved but with varied quality status or levels. Majority of them require a

facelift or expansion works because of their inability to contain the huge number of vehicles that

use them. However, these expansion works may not be able to contain the increases in vehicle

population. The single carriage roads such as the High Street need to be prioritized in this respect

(since there is heavy traffic on that section at the time), and it is therefore appropriate that the

road is currently under rehabilitation. For most parts of the roads in the CBD, however,

expansion seemingly appears not feasible without prior demolishing of vast number of structures

that closely line up the road. This could consequently increase the budgets of any expansion

work, which governments may not be able to afford. Under these constraints, the most probable

alternative left is how to better manage the traffic situation.

For most parts of these roads also, road markings are either not available or have faded overtime

as already mentioned. Similarly well-positioned visible signposts are not available at several

points of the roads. This phenomenon undoubtedly makes it difficult for drivers who are

unfamiliar with the roads to use them, and consequently increase the likelihood of traffic

congestion and jeopardize safety on the roads. In spite of the large number of cars that access

roads in the CBD of Accra, there is inadequate provision of parking spaces. As a result, it is

common to find cars parking or stopping at unauthorized places, and thereby obstructing free

vehicular movement and also posing a considerable threat to road safety. This situation has

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therefore created a strong investment potential for the development of car parks either for private

or commercial cars. Mostly the offices, shopping centres and other commercial functions serve

as the ‘magnet’ that attracts people to this area. At the same time, the area itself further

accommodates a host of organizations that pull people from various parts of the country and the

outside world. This partly accounts for large number of roads that link the arterial territorial

roads of the CBD of Accra.

Several vehicles ply these adjoining routes to enter the CBD on daily basis and this contributes

significantly to the traffic congestion on roads in the CBD area, particularly at the junctions.

Even though traffic lights have been strategically mounted at some of these junctions to enhance

easy traffic flow, the need for the construction of overpass at some of these junctions can still not

be overemphasized.

Traffic congestion in the area varies from time to time and from place to place. The periods with

intense congestion are mostly between 7.30 and 10.00 in the mornings and 4.30 and 5.30 in the

evenings. For the morning period, the congestion is mostly due to the influx of people from

various parts of the capital into the CBD mostly for work and other business transactions.

Average speed in these areas is as low as 10- 12km/hr. The evening period, however, coincides

with the closing time for most workers in the CBD, and hence the return to their various

residential quarters outside of the area of work. Even though all the roads are prone to traffic

congestion, the ones with severe incidence include:

the Nkrumah Circle to Obetsebi Lamptey Circle;

the Graphic Road; and

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The High Street.

Reasons for their high propensity to traffic congestion include their proximity to highly

populated residential areas, and the highly commercialized nature of the surrounding areas that

serve people far and near, coupled with the lack of road infrastructural improvement to serve the

continual increase in number of vehicles. It should also be mentioned here that, the traffic in

these areas are caused by sheer through-traffic and not one necessarily generated by the

population around the neighbourhoods. The Ghana Highway Authority, which has as one of its

responsibilities to implement a maintenance management system for planning, organizing,

directing, and controlling a routine and periodic maintenance activities have come under some

criticism for the poor nature of the drainage system in the city.  Whereas some of the roads in the

CBD have a well-established network of primary drains, majority do not have. Further

compounding the problem is the lack of maintenance of the drains and indiscriminate dumping

of rubbish into the drainage systems by drivers, passengers and pedestrians alike. The

unfortunate consequence of this phenomenon is the constant flooding of the roads during each

and every heavy rainfall in the area, especially at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

Another related issue that needs attention is the absence of pedestrian overpass in the CBD, a

situation which compels in most cases, the pedestrians to interfere with traffic causing brief

gridlocks at busy periods. Within areas like the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and Obetsebi Lamptey

Circle where pedestrians and motorists highly compete for the road space, pedestrian overpass

are conspicuously missing. This further makes it difficult for disabled people to cross the road. It

is therefore hoped that the recently completed pedestrian overpass at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle

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leading to Achimota, would be replicated on the road from the Kwame Nkrumah Circle to the

Obestebi Lamptey Circle as well as on the Kanda Overpass and other similar busy roads in the

metropolis. These would help improve upon the traffic situation in these areas.

The heavy presence of vehicles in the CBD has also become a prominent source of noise and air

pollution in the area. The noise from car engines and from honking of car horns, as well as from

the massive commercial activities constantly disrupts any semblance of serenity in the area. The

exhaust emissions from these vehicles that enter the CBD, on the other hand, have a terrible

deleterious effect on air quality in the area and beyond. Economic theories as stated earlier on

argue that all these associated effects have not been accounted for by the very people who cause

these harms. Road pricing when implemented have the capability to correct these discrepancies

in the network and in the system.

CHAPTER FOUR

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FEASIBILITY OF A ROAD PRICING SCHEME IN ACCRA

4.1 Chapter Overview

This chapter discusses the data and/ or the responses gathered from the field on the topic under

investigation. This has been categorized under the subheadings- the demographic characteristics

of the respondents; private car owners and/ or drivers; the general public and/ or commuters; and

the mini bus or ‘trotro’ and taxi operators. The issues that came out of the discussions with these

various groups of respondents have been discussed. Efforts were made to see how the issues fit

into the main objectives of this work and to what extent it supports what the literature portrays.

Ultimately, the study also discussed how these issues would fit into the overall development

agenda (in terms of provision of road infrastructure) of this country vis-à-vis the Ghana Poverty

Reduction Strategy (GPRS) I and II as well as how they feed into the New Partnership for

Africa’s Development (NEPAD) concept as regards the issue of transportation provision since to

a very large extent, the world has become a global village. Ghana’s transport sector in is not a

thing for only the peoples and citizens of Ghana. The economies of individual countries have

geo-politically shrunk in size, and the phenomenon of road infrastructure provision has become a

developmental matter with global character and concern, which needs a multidisciplinary

approach rather than one left in the care of any one discipline.

4.2 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

The total number of people interviewed was two hundred and ten (210). The sexes and ages, and

educational status of the respondents have been presented. Out of the people interviewed, the

male constituted the dominant group. This is partly because, the art and/ or profession of driving

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has for a very long time been dominated by males who have more economic power than females.

The table below provides a summary of the above discussion. Males also appeared to have better

education compared to their female counterparts.

Table 4.0 Sex Distributions of Respondents

Sex Frequency Percentage

Male 159 75.7

Female 51 24.3

Total 210 100

Source: Fieldwork, 2006

Only one woman was found to be participating in commercial driving and this may be attributed

to the high risk that is usually associated with this job.

4.3 Age Distribution of Respondents

The ages of the respondents has been categorized into six (6) groups. The age distribution as

displayed in table 4.1 shows that most respondents are concentrated within the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th age

groups with a minimum of 26 years and a maximum of 55 years. These three dominant age

groups contained 72.9% of all respondents.

Table 4.1 Age Groups of Respondents

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Age Classes Frequency Percentage

16-25 20 9.5

26-35 63 30.0

36-45 55 26.2

46-55 35 16.7

56-65 24 11.4

66-75 13 6.2

Total 210 100

Source: Fieldwork, 2006

The distribution is further presented in Fig. 4.1 to enhance a better understanding of the data. The

mean age of the distribution is 41yrs. The standard deviation from this mean value is available

from Appendix A. This gives us the true picture of the cross-section of the ages of the

respondents, as there were some respondents of 18-19yrs found within the sampled population

driving in the central business district.

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4.4 Educational Status of Respondents and its Relevance to the Study

As observed earlier, questions such as how education had influenced peoples’ driving culture

have been looked into under this sub title. To what extent does this go to make people change

their behaviour towards driving properly on the roads? Does education matter at all when it

comes to the issue of ability to own a car? And does this have anything to do with the

management and/ or control of traffic congestion on the roads in question? Interestingly, the

Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I & II (GPRS-I &II) made mention of what role education

can play as regards the issue of reducing the burden of poverty in our communities in Ghana. For

instance the GPRS I: pp.21, made reference to education and poverty as follows:

“The level of education attained is a signal of income earning potential of individuals

and households and therefore a predictor of the population segment likely to be

vulnerable to income shocks especially with ageing. About 32 per cent of adults and

nearly twice as many females as men had never been to school. And a negligible number

(25%) went to school but did not complete the minimum years for any certificate”

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The responses gathered point to the fact that education has a role to play in the subject under

investigation, and this answers most of the questions posed above. For instance, when asked to

provide some solutions on how to implement the concept of road pricing, the respondents,

thought that education should be the first point of consideration- both in formal and informal

terms. This view also featured prominently in the proposed Ghana Transport Policy Document

known as the Green Paper (now the White Paper). This document is regarded as Ghana’s first

attempt towards creating harmony in the transport. It documents coherent solutions to the

problems faced in the sector, such as educating the citizenry about the best practices of road

usage and markings, as well as other relevant safety measures. When people are well educated

on how to use the road and for that matter, the transport infrastructure, the human factors that

lead to the creation of unnecessary traffic congestion at certain parts of the city or on certain

routes in the city would be reduced drastically to its barest minimum.

It was also observed that most of the people who drove private cars on most of the routes in the

study area were better educated than those who drove commercial and other types of vehicles. A

pattern, nonetheless, translated into the driving culture or behaviour of the respondents.

Generally, private car drivers respected road signs and traffic regulations more than their

counterparts who drove other types of vehicles. But there were instances where people who

attended driving schools hardly respected traffic rules and regulations. On the part of commercial

drivers, it appears there is a lot of anxiety among this group of drivers in trying to meet their

daily sales’ targets set forth by their vehicle owners, hence their recklessness on the roads.

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This situation most likely generates unhealthy competition amongst those commercial drivers

hence they end up racing with each other on the roads. This results in ultimate disregard for

traffic rules and regulations. For instance, in the Road Traffic Offences Regulations Act of 1974,

it is an offence for any person to open the door of any motor vehicle for a passenger while that

vehicle is in motion. But these rules are flouted by these commercial drivers on daily basis with

impunity thereby causing intermittent traffic congestion on some of these roads for several hours.

By and large, education should translate into good driving etiquettes on our roads. During one of

the interactions with one of these mini bus or ‘trotro’ drivers, we obtained the response in Box 1

regarding the jumping of traffic light whenever the police were not at the scene:

Box 1

Some of the other offences in the said document (Road Traffic Offences Regulation Act, 1974)

are for example the following, which these drivers ignorantly flout every passing day which

consequentially results in a gridlock on our roads:

No person shall alight from a stationary motor vehicle so as to endanger any road

user.

No person shall alight from a motor vehicle while that vehicle is in motion.

No person shall park or stop a motor vehicle within thirty feet of a junction.

No person shall park or stop a motor vehicle on a pedestrian crossing or railways

crossing etc (Road Traffic Offences Regulations Acts, 1974)

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It therefore appears that the high sales targets set for these commercial drivers by their vehicle

owners have repercussions such as the impatient attitude and antagonistic mannerisms

demonstrated on the roads when driving. Table 4.2 below gives the summary of the educational

background of the respondents interviewed. Those with University/Polytechnic educational

background were in the majority. The group represents most of the private car owners. It is likely

that this group of respondents is better paid and may also have access to loans for the purchase of

vehicles. Banks in the country nowadays have stepped up efforts to give financial assistance or

loans to white-collar employees and business people more easily than any other individuals since

it is easy for the banks to recover such loans. To an extent, this phenomenon has some

repercussions on vehicle ownership in the country and the concomitant increase in the traffic

situation in years to come.

Table 4.2 Educational Status of Respondents

Educational Status Frequency Percentage

Primary/Elementary 27 12.9

JSS/Middle School 38 18.1

SSS/O & A Level 44 20.9

Post Secondary 20 9.5

Polytechnic/University 81 38.6

Total 210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

While on the field conducting interviews, it was observed that, both the highly/better educated

and the low/poorly educated alike engaged in acts that led to traffic congestion. For example,

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there was a private car driver who pulled over in the middle of the road to buy grocery from a

vendor along the shoulders of the road on the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue near the Swanzy

Shopping Arcade. An act of this nature is likely to obstruct the free flow of traffic. Fig. 4.2 is a

graphical representation of the information contained in the above table.

4.5 The Urban Morphogenesis of Accra and its Sphere of Influence

Pacione (2005), explains that although urban morphogenesis (referring to town plan analysis) in

a more recent formulation has sought to advance from the traditional description and

classification of urban forms to an analysis of the causal forces underlying changes in the pattern

of urban lands, the approach has still been sidelined since it got to its highest point in the 1960s.

The intent of introducing this sub-topic here was to use the methodology to examine the

functional extent of Accra, socio-economically and politico-culturally, and to see if this has also

contributed towards the traffic congestion in the city. In a more recent seminal work on Conzen

(1960), Pacione (2005) explains that he (Conzen) divided the urban landscape into three main

elements: town plans; building forms; and land use, and he demonstrated how each reacted at a

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different rate/scale to the forces of change. Below are Conzen’s ideas as illustrated in Pacione’s

work (2005):

Land Use, he said, is the most susceptible to change.

According to him, since buildings represent capital investments and are

adaptable to alternative uses without being physically replaced, change occurs at

a slower rate than with land use.

The town plan or street layout is most resistant to change.

To comment further on these points, the Land Use of the Accra Metropolis has undergone a lot

of change or transformation since independence. Various parts of the city have been transformed

over the years into one form of land use or the other. A typical example is where many

residential quarters have been converted into departmental shopping arenas; where car parks

have been constructed in the metropolis to take care of the ever increasing need for car parking;

and again where plots of lands have also been converted to bus terminals and for pedestrians’

shopping malls. The Rawlings Park in the heart of the CBD of Accra is a typical example. All

these are done to meet the ever increasing demand for these facilities in the city as the population

grows and income levels increase gradually.

Many of these conversions or what the ecological school of thought termed the concept of

competition among land uses for space result in the invasion of the most desired parts of a city

and eventually leading to the succession of existing land uses by the more dominant activity.

Accra is therefore showing many of these traits where the CBD is expanding very fast into its’

surroundings. This phenomenon, nevertheless, leads to generation of traffic congestion on many

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of the arteries that lead to and/ or within the city centre. For example, the Adenta-Legon-Accra

corridor, and the Teshie-Nungua-Accra road become heavily congested in the mornings and in

the evenings mostly on weekdays.

During the regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and reign of the current

government- the New Patriotic Party (NPP) - the roads in the metropolis have seen a lot of

physical extension. However, these are not enough to meet the ever-growing travel demand of

the population, as there has been tremendous increase in vehicle ownership over the years. More

recently, a section of the high street in the CBD is being expanded to cater for the increase in

travel demand or traffic volume in that part of the city. It is regrettable to note that almost eighty

per cent of the funds for these projects are borrowed from the development partners. Road

pricing, if adopted would help serve many of these needs, and improve the growing need for

cheap urban transportation for most people, especially the urban poor.

Conzen, as Pacione observed introduced the concepts of the fringe belt and burgage cycle to aid

his analysis of urban change. The existence of a fringe belt and associated fixation line reflects

the fact that urban growth is cyclical rather than continuous, with periods of outward extension

alternating with periods of standstill (marked by a fixation line) due to a down turn in the

building cycle (Pacione, 2005). I hasten to add that the city of Accra bear semblance to this

concept in many fronts. The Accra Metropolis has outgrown its size since its creation many years

ago. The city has also witnessed tremendous expansion in functional form since its

establishment. But there were also periods of ‘dark days’ during the eras of political turmoil

when people could hardly come from far and near to transact business for the fear of being

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molested by those disgruntled military officials who paraded the city with their weapons. Experts

at all levels are still working at determining the functional extent (i.e. in socio-economic and

politico-cultural terms) of Accra, and the extent to which it influences its surrounding areas. Any

attempt at introducing road pricing should take into consideration the morphology of Accra (as

an organic structure), and the need of the poor should also be carefully considered.

In line with the objective to look for data to support the socio-economic and the politico-cultural

extent or the sphere of influence of the central business district (CBD) of Accra, respondents

(both drivers and the general group of commuters) were asked to state residential locations and

place of work. The outcome has been displayed in table 4.3. The reality is that the city of Accra

remains very much connected to its surroundings. Accra is also connected to even the other nine

regions at the socio-economic as well as politico-cultural levels. People from other regions come

to transact business in the city on daily basis, and they in turn carry with them some of the urban

cultures to their respective destinations. This is not at-all surprising, since the city of Accra

comparatively has the best of almost all the necessities of life- talk about the hospitals, white-

collar jobs, the banking institutions, and housing to mention but a few.

The territorial boundaries of Accra as a city have not changed since its establishment many

decades ago. However, the buildings and other physical infrastructures like roads and several

others, which constitute the built up environment, keep on changing accordingly as a result of the

dynamic forces of change that are mostly orchestrated by public and private phenomena.

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Table 4.3 Place/ Routes of Residence of Respondents

Place of ResidenceFrequency Percentage

Accra Central Area 16 7.6

Suhum-Achimota-Accra corridor 60 28.9

Teshie-Nungua – Accra corridor 18 8.6

Adenta-Legon-Accra corridor 37 17.6

Kasoa-Mallam-Accra corridor 39 18.6

Tema-T. Quarshie-Accra corridor 14 6.7

Agbobloshie-Korle Bu-Accra corridor 14 6.7

Agbelemkpe-Dworwulu-Accra corridor 12 5.7

Total 210 100

Source; fieldwork, 2006

Table 4.3 above provides us with the spatial locations and/ or the corridors from which

respondents (drivers and general group of commuters) radiate to the CBD on daily basis to

transact business. This was done to give us a rough idea of the extent to which the city influences

or are connected to its’ surrounding areas. The information gathered echoes the point that the

central business district of the Accra metropolis is really the heart of commercial activities in the

country. As has been demonstrated above, only sixteen (16) out of the two hundred and ten (210)

people interviewed, happened to live and work in the central business district or work else

where. Majority of the people come from outside the area giving the impression that the city

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goes ‘dead’ at night. But, there are many activities that go on at night. For instance the

nightclubs, some drinking spots, and some bus terminals among others operate till the next day.

Another example is in some communities where the indigenous Ga people of Accra (at

Jamestown and Osu) stay late doing one thing or the other.

Fig. 4.3: Places/ Routes of Residence of Respondents

0 10 20 30 40

Accra Central Area

Suhum-Achimota-Accracorridor

Teshie-Nungua – Accracorridor

Adenta-Legon-Accra corridor

Kasoa-Mallam-Accra corridor

Tema-T. Quarshie-Accracorridor

Agbobloshie-Korle Bu-Accracorridor

Agbelemkpe-Dworwulu-Accracorridor

Rout

es/C

orrid

ors

Percentage

Percentage Bars

4.6 Driving and the Sampled Population

Respondents were asked if they have gone through any formal driving school or training. This

was to find out how many private car and commercial vehicle drivers have had some formal

training as far as driving was concerned. Over 157 people, representing 75 per cent of those

interviewed (i.e. excluding the commuter population) did not attend any driving school. Neither

did they go through any training programme.

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In effect, this perhaps answers the question why there is such bad knowledge of road signs

among all kinds of drivers on our roads. This finding partly appears to translate into the high

number of fatalities on the roads. Drivers could hardly tell the meanings of road signs, and could

hardly interpret markings on the roads. When pedestrians stood at pedestrians crossing points

expecting drivers to stop for them to cross the streets, these drivers do not either take them

seriously or do not think they should pull over prompting these pedestrians to interfere with the

flow of traffic, and the consequences of such actions, is sometimes death. All these form part of

the human factors that culminate into the problem of congestion on certain parts of the road

network, hence causing delays and a reduction in travel time, and ultimately a loss in revenue to

the individuals themselves, organizations, and the nation as a whole.

Although this causal relationship may look inconsequential to some, it is really a thing to be

worried about. A very good knowledge of road signs and markings would ultimately translate

into proper interpretation of them, and would therefore enhance the flow of traffic and safety on

the roads, and subsequently an improvement in travel time in that part of the network, as well as

improvement in productivity and efficiency levels in the whole system. These revelations again

bring to the fore the issue as to whether having Junior Secondary School (JSS) Certificate would

be enough for one to drive responsibly or not? As indicated earlier, a good number of the

respondents have at least some form of education. The unfortunate thing, however, is that this

does not translate into good driving practices to help curb congestion on our roads. We should

also not be deceived by the fact that the high numbers of respondents who have either university

or polytechnic education are better in terms of safety and responsible driving as against their

other counterparts. It should also be pointed out that, being a university or a polytechnic graduate

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does not in itself give one an excellent knowledge of road signs or markings. It takes a little more

effort than that. It was found out that there were people who were ‘highly/better’ educated, but

who hardly had any knowledge of proper driving rules and regulations and what even constitutes

a traffic offence. Table 4.4 below shows that as many as seventy five per cent of the people who

drove into the CBD did not go through any formal driving school.

Table 4.4 Driving School Attendances of Respondents

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 53 25.2

NO 157 74.8

Total210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

Another disconcerting scenario was how relatively a large number of people acquired their

driver’s licenses even though they barely had any good knowledge of road signs and markings or

even safety driving. Here is what one commercial driver had to say when he was asked how he

got his license:

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Box 2:

When he was further probed as to why he prefers the ‘back door’ to the ‘front door’, he blatantly

said there are too many bureaucracies in going through the approved channel. This respondent’s

views concerning the acquisition of driver’s license represents perhaps the views of many more

others who perhaps for one reason or the other could not be candid with us on this subject. In

their judgment, even if one goes through the acceptable channel, there are still some unnecessary

bureaucracies along the way. So, for most of these individuals, they simply do not have faith in

the current system in operation.

The table below gives us an idea about the figures of those who possess valid driver’s license as

against those who do not. This is an alarming situation since this problem cut across all

categories of respondents including private vehicle owners and/ or drivers as well. Ultimately, a

good knowledge of road signs and driving regulations is expected to curb the menace of bad

driving on the roads, and consequently reduce those human factors, which cause traffic

congestion. The situation becomes difficult if the trend continues in this direction. As evident in

table 4.4 above, nearly 75 per cent of the people interviewed did not go through driving school.

In Table 4.5 below, however, almost 85 per cent of the interviewees managed to secure valid

driver’s license; 15 per cent answered ‘NO’, which could either mean they do not have a valid

driver’s license or they do not have one at all. This development raises the question as to how

safe our roads are.

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Table 4.5 Possession of Valid Driver’s License

Response Frequency Percentage

Yes 178 84.8

No 32 15.2

Total 210 100

Source; fieldwork, 2006

4.7 Relationship between Private Car Ownership and Income

Table 4.6 demonstrates the number of people interviewed who drove into and/ or from the

central business district (CBD) of Accra on daily basis. As many as 75% of this group conceded

that they drive into and/ or from the CBD on routine basis thus making them have the experience

of the twice daily travel through the congestion in that part of the city. Nearly 25% do not drive

into and/ or from the CBD. Out of the 75% who drove into and/ or from the CBD, 112

representing 53.3% were the private car drivers/owners.

Table 4.6 Number of people who drove into and/ or from the CBD

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 157 74.8

NO 53 25.2

Total210 100

Source; fieldwork, 2006

Further, to map the various times that these people drove into and/ or from the CBD in a bid to

see if this conforms with the double daily congestion times, we came up with the following

zoning. It turns out that, 7.30 to 10.30 in the mornings (as portrayed in the table below) marked

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the heaviest time range that most of these people make their trip into the central business area of

Accra, and this time range coincides with the morning’s congestion period. This range marks the

period when people struggle to reach their activity points on time ready to start working. We

could appropriately describe this time range as the morning rush hours. Logically, people who

want to visit that part of the city for various reasons would have to be very circumspect about

this, especially people who want to leave their work posts briefly in order to purchase any item

from that area of the city, should be mindful of this fact as they are not likely to get there in time

if they do not make provisions for this far ahead of the congestion that await them. Only a few

people (about 12%) leave their homes much earlier than this time range in order to beat the

heavy traffic that awaits others. This group of persons cannot simply handle the situation and

therefore find it more convenient to leave their homes early ahead of the heavy morning traffic

that awaits others on daily basis.

Upon closing from their various places of work, only 8.6% are able to drive back within the time

range 4.30 to 5.30 representing the evenings. Majority would prefer to stay behind or hang

around, and wait for the situation (congestion) to ease to a considerable level before making their

second journey back home. This may be the reason why they are not able to wake up early

enough in the mornings in order to set off to their work stations early as do those who do that.

People get home exhausted and therefore the possibility of waking up from bed early enough to

drive to their work stations is very bleak. As one driver told us:

“By the time I get home I am often too tired. I cannot do anything any more than sleep,

not even having time for my family”

Table 4.7 Time Ranges Respondents Drive into Accra Central Area

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Time Frequency Percentage

5.00 – 7.00 am 19 11.7

7.30 – 10.00 am 78 48.2

4.30 – 5.30 pm 14 8.6

Anytime 51 31.5

Total 162 100

Source; fieldwork, 2006

To know what people do in that area of the city, we endeavoured to ask them why they drove to

that part of the city. The results are those displayed in table 4.8 below. There are various reasons

why people travel, but as popularized in most literature the travels to a CBD is mostly for

economic reasons. Nonetheless, we came across a few cases where people went to visit friends

and relatives, which might accordingly be termed social trips. There might be many more of such

cases.

Table 4.8 Reasons for driving into Accra Central Area

Reasons Frequency Percentage

For passengers 50 30.9

For shopping 26 16.0

For freight/goods 0 0

Work 67 41.4

Visit/Pick up someone 19 11.7

Total 162 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

As can be seen in table 4.8, there were no responses for freight and goods as a reason for driving

into the CBD. But, this does not necessarily mean that people do not drive there for these

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purposes. The ‘no response’ for this question could simply be due to several factors. In Ghana,

there is no clear-cut policy on putting goods and passengers in separate vehicles-at least not as

far as the Road Traffic Offences Regulations Act of 1974 is concerned. So, goods and humans

are most of the time put into the same vehicle. This partly explains why people, especially

commercial drivers could not state in categorical or in distinguishable terms if they went into the

CBD for passengers or for goods. In effect, it would not be out of place if one concludes that the

30.9% who drove to the CBD went to convey or load passengers, and to load or to off-load

goods.

As part of the objectives of this work, the study aimed at unearthing any relationships that exist

between people’s incomes and the number of vehicles they owned/drove since this, according to

Pacione (2005) and Yildirm (2001) contributes to a very large extent to the problem of

congestion in many metropolitan cities across the world. As regards the case study of the city of

Accra, there exist clear-cut or strong evidence to support this school of thought. So, we set out,

amongst other things to empirically prove/investigate this relationship.

A question was posed relating to the incomes of respondents who owned and drove basically

private vehicles in the CBD. Private vehicle owners were to state their monthly incomes

covering the period 2000 to 2005 so we could observe the changes that took place over this time

period to enable us analyze the changes over this period. Unfortunately, this target of running a

time series analysis was not achieved since most of the people were reluctant to volunteer this

detail. The information provided by a segment of the respondents in this category for the year

2000 seems very useful at this point, and this was the only data subsequently used in the

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computation. Nevertheless, the information thus provides us with a very useful pattern that is

very interesting and would serve the rationale of this work. The table below illustrates this, and

details about the mathematical computations have been provided in Appendix B.

Table 4.9a Relationship between Monthly Income and Private Car Ownership in Year 2000

YEARS 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000

Income

(X)

400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1.800 2,000

Average No.

of Vehicles

(Y)

1 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 5

NB: All Incomes quoted above are the New Ghana Cedis: ¢10,000≡ 1GHC≡100p N=9

Using the simple regression equation or the predictive model quoted in chapter one (Y = a + bX),

we could make predictions about the number of vehicles that people are likely to own if their

salaries increase in the years to come (i.e. if all other factors remain constant). For instance, as

shown by the calculations in Appendix B, the values of ‘a’ and ‘b’ were 1 and 0.0016

respectively. Let us then assume that the income of a person (X) increases to GH¢ 500 in the

near future with all other factors such as inflation and other parameters (like the will to purchase)

remaining constant. What would then be the state of car ownership?

Before addressing this illustration, let us take a look at the computation of the level of

significance (i.e. the confidence level test) as shown in Appendix B. It turned out that at five

percent (5%) level of significance (which is confidence level of 95%), tn-2,α/2 (turn to Appendix

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B) was calculated to be 2.365, which was less than ‘T’ with a value of 3.38, where ‘T’ is given as

the test statistic. Hence, H0 can therefore be rejected leaving us to conclude that, the observed

correlation between income and private car ownership is statistically significant. With this, we

can then continue with the illustration above.

If we should substitute these figures into the equation above to observe what would then happen

to the other variable- vehicle ownership (Y)? It would then tend out that, if this was the case, the

person is likely to purchase or own approximately 2 vehicles. And, by the same prediction, at

income level of GH¢ 2,000 people are likely to own approximately 5 more vehicles. This, of

course, is not surprising as there was a man who boasts of having six (6) private vehicles. Simply

put, one could describe the man’s work as a-well-paid job. As to why he had decided to invest in

that number of vehicles, the team did not bother to ask since it does not have a bearing on our

work. But ideally, there is certainly a point beyond which people would say, enough of the

vehicles, and they may decide, to an extent, to buy two or three luxurious vehicles instead, or

may also decide to invest the extra money they make in other ventures. These are decisions

purely left to individuals to make.

Should the predictions made above be the case, there is bound to be tremendous increase in road

traffic congestion across the country if incomes of the people get better as anticipated under the

Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy documents, with the city of Accra obviously being the worse

affected. This is because the Greater Accra Region had had the highest levels of income as

compared to the other nine regions in the country since independence; besides, it has also been

the most urbanized of the ten regions. As demonstrated in Appendix B, the correlation between

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the two variables in the table is a very significant one based on the test of confidence level of

95%. This, therefore, is a potential for congestion to get out of hand if things are not properly

managed. About 80% of the nation’s industries and factories are located in Accra and Tema,

which are found within the Greater Accra Region. Most of the commercial activities and other

forms of trading occur here in this region. The commercial sector is dominated by wholesale and

retail trade that accounts for 30.4% according to the Census Report (2002) and the

manufacturing sector accounts for only 16.7%. These figures leave us in no doubts that, should

there be an economic boom; the region is surely going to be the highest recipient among the ten.

Again, the three largest occupational groups dominated by males are: the production, transport

operators and related workers 29.6%; sales workers 19.4%; and clerical workers 14.4% as

compared to 42.0% of females in sales occupations; 19.5% in productions, transport and

equipment; and 13.9% in service occupations (Census Report, 2002). This information further

strengthens earlier findings where the numbers of males found/interviewed driving, were more

than their female counterparts.

The correlation expressed above between the two variables is in no doubt strong as has been

demonstrated in Appendix B. Aided by these two indices- the correlation coefficient (r), and the

coefficient of determination (r2) - therefore, one can say that 67 per cent of the variability in the

criterion variable (Y) is predictable on the basis of the predictor variable (X). Table 4.9b below

provides the responses of the people interviewed regarding perception of income levels and car

ownership. Over 74.5% of private car owners interviewed thought that, when their income levels

go up, they are likely to own more vehicles. With these perceptions, there is bound to be increase

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in private car ownership, which will contribute to the congestion on the roads. Table 4.9b also

illustrates that only 25.5% of the respondents thought they would not own a car should their

incomes go up.

Table 4.9b Perceptions on Private Car Ownership with Increase in Income

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 82 74.5

NO 28 25.5

Total 110 100

Source; fieldwork, 2006

To find out the various types of vehicles that travel within the study area, we tried posing the

question to respondents to state the types of vehicles they drive. Below are the absolute figures in

terms of the various categories and their percentage scores.

Table 4.10 Types of Vehicle Respondents Drive

VEHICLE TYPE FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE

Private Car 112 69.1

Taxi 15 9.3

Mini bus/Trotro 15 9.3

Public bus 20 12.3

Total 162 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

From the above table, it is obvious that private car owners/ drivers were those in the majority.

This is perfectly in line with the objectives of this work. Over 112 private vehicle owners

responded to the questions posed. Here is the view of one man who works along the Kwame

Nkrumah Avenue:

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Box 3

As evident in the above statement, people throughout the study seem to have problem with how

the money generated from such a scheme would be used. These concerns reaffirm the views of

Yildirim (2001), and Hibbs (2003). Yildirim in reference to the Hong Kong scenario stated that

users should be informed and persuaded that tolling the roads will make life easier in terms of

congestion and public transportation. By so doing they would then have confidence in the

authorities that, monies generated from such schemes would be put to good use for the benefit of

all. Once these parameters are made clear to the people, it is probable that they would laud the

idea, and therefore embrace it.

The main goals as outlined in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (I) document was to ensure

sustainable equitable growth, accelerated poverty reduction and the protection of the vulnerable

and excluded within a decentralized, democratic environment (GPRS I:pp.30). It was further

stated that to achieve the above; the following specifics would be done:

Ensuring economic stability for accelerated growth

Increasing production and promoting sustainable livelihoods

Facilitating direct support of the vulnerable and excluded ensuring gender equity

Ensuring good governance and the increased capacity of the public sector

The active involvement of the private sector as the main engine of growth and

partner in nation building

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“Congestion is a serious problem in this country and it is delaying our time of doing business. So, we welcome studies of this nature that seek to find solutions to the problem. I think the idea is good, if the monies would be used for the right purpose”

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The pertinent question, however, is how does one achieve these goals/objectives right from step

one to the very last one? Goods manufactured and/ or produced at their various points would

have to be conveyed to the final consumer. Until this is done, there is no need talking about

growth and subsequently development. That would mean that people, goods and services would

have to be moved quickly and swiftly in space from one activity point to the other. This means

further that there has to be free movement of traffic on the roadways between activity points

located in space.

We have always resorted to borrowings from the international community before building such

road infrastructures and even maintaining existing ones to accommodate the growing traffic.

Heggie (1994) acknowledges that, during the past 20 years, nearly a quarter of the capital

invested in Sub-Saharan Africa’s roads has been eroded through insufficient maintenance.

Ghana’s GPRS I document also observed that, overall donors contributed the largest share of

non-wage expenditure, and this share represents 75% of total non-wage expenditure in 1997 but

declined to about 66% in 1998. At the same time, donor aid to economic services and

infrastructure represents a substantial proportion of our total expenditure in those two areas

afore-stated (economic services and infrastructure) in 2001. Heggie (1994) also observed that,

the road sector in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) absorbs 5 to 10 percent of central government

recurrent budgets and 10 to 20 percent of their development budget. He further stated that a

significant proportion of the central government’s disbursed and outstanding debt is attributable

to road loans and the sector also absorbs a great deal of grant finance, mainly for procurement of

construction and maintenance equipment. The question then is must we continue to rely on our

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donors? The launching of the Urban Transport Project is a welcomed news in this regard to help

solve the problem of traffic congestion. But this could be under threat if funds are not

forthcoming.

Road pricing then offers a sort of double-edged razor. It could, when properly managed, serve as

a source of revenue to augment the Road Fund to help solve some of these problems. And at the

same time, it could help manage congestion on our roads. The GPRS I & II documents that spell

out the development agenda of this country recognize the need to expand revenue sources for the

Road Fund. For instance, it was observed that corporate bodies would be encouraged to adopt

feeder roads for maintenance, and to make contributions to the Road Fund. Feasibility of such a

programme is in doubt as such an initiative seems remote. This is why a well-managed road

pricing scheme complemented by other traffic management strategies offers a more capable and

pragmatic solution towards answering many of these challenging questions.

Another solution which the GPRS document mentions in relation to speeding up the process of

delivering goods and services, and perhaps indirectly easing the traffic congestion (although not

explicitly stated in the document), was rehabilitating and maintaining a complimentary network

of about 14,000km of trunk and 3,000km of urban roads to augment the effort by the feeder

roads to facilitate the distribution of activities in space. This is, nevertheless, a welcome idea, but

as to whether this would be able to contain the increasing demand for road space for that matter

the increase in demand for travel, is another thing altogether. It is almost six (6) years since the

implementation of GPRS I, but still foodstuffs get stacked in the villages and prices of these

foodstuffs are still generally high although relatively stable across the country. Production costs

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of most goods still remain high. One cannot run away from the fact that congestion is part of the

equation.

As table 4.11 below clearly demonstrates, over 62% of the private car owners interviewed

answered ‘no’ to the question whether they are able to report to work on time. Table 4.12 shows

the frequencies and percentages of responses to the question on lateness to work. This was a

reflective pattern seen amongst commercial vehicle drivers as well. They also claimed their

inability to reach terminals in a more timely fashion was mostly due to traffic congestion. In our

part of the world, people look up to governments to provide roadways, which are nonetheless

capital intensive. We need money for these infrastructural developments. The transportation

system must also be properly managed in a way to greatly reduce waiting time and improve

tremendously travel time or average speed levels, and thereby improving the economic activities

as well as the wellbeing of people in general. These are the realities confronting us.

Table 4.11 Responses to Reporting Time at work

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 41 37.3

NO 69 62.7

Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

Table 4.12 Responses to Traffic Congestion Causing Lateness to Work

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 74 78.7

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NO 20 21.3

Total 94 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

To find out the reasons why private car owners prefer to ride in their private vehicles instead of

riding on the public buses or metro mass buses, the researcher structured a question to address

this. Below in Table4.13 are the categories of feedbacks we gathered from respondents. Sixty-

seven (67) people out of the one-hundred and ten (110) interviewed, representing 60.8%

affirmed that it is to avoid traffic congestion/delays on the roads during the double peak times

that they chose to ride in their own cars to work so that they may get to their places of work on

time. This also supports the data above in table 4.11 where 63% out of the 110 people

interviewed perceived traffic congestion as responsible for not reaching their activity points in

time. Furthermore the perceptions of 67% are that, traffic is the major factor why they are late

for work (Table 4.12). The perception about congestion is still so strong and definitely something

very pragmatic needs to be done about this problem.

Table 4.13 Reasons for Going to Work in One’s Own Vehicle

Reason Frequency Percentage

Unreliable MMT/PBS 16 14.5

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Unreliable taxis &trotro 19 17.3

Traffic congestion/Delays 67 60.8

Convenience/Comfort 8 7.3

Totals 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

It is important to note here some of the interesting views by the respondents at the Accra

Metropolitan Assembly. When the question concerning what factors in their view cause traffic

congestion in the CBD of Accra was asked, the following were their comments:

Box 4

The factors identified above, are in support of the earlier viewpoint in previous paragraphs.

These factors and others, cause delays to workers and the general public as a whole, thereby

having serious consequences on the entire system of efficient delivery of goods and services.

Christainsen (2006:pp.71), made the following observation during his analysis of the

Singaporean case study:

“…Congestion results not only in time lost while sitting in traffic jams. It also constitutes

a disruption to company supply chain and the general flow of commerce. Idling vehicles

contribute as well to air pollution. Congestion thus reduces the quality of life, but

government efforts to limit it have been, for the most part, woefully inadequate…”

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Pedestrians interfering with the roadways Hawkers selling on the roads and on pedestrian walk ways Lawless driving by all manner of drivers Colonial Legacy of making Accra the only centre of all things Proliferation of small vehicles (taxi, trotro, private cars) since

there are not enough public buses; and Regional inequality

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It is very important to note that, this assertion by this expert can be supported by the responses in

table 4.14 by our sampled population. During our interview, we also tried to record the

perceptions of the sampled population regarding their experiences driving through the gridlock

or traffic congestion on daily basis, and the information in the table below were what they had to

say. As many as 67 respondents out of the total of 110 private vehicle owners, representing

nearly 61% describe their experiences as very bad driving through the gridlock on daily basis. Of

course, not surprising to us, no single individual was found saying that the congestion was very

good since this is a menace which could not be described as very good. This only strengthens the

assertion made that congestion is really becoming a nuisance in cities in this country and that it is

high time we did something concrete about the phenomenon. The Singaporean example offers us

better grounds to start searching for the benefits of such a scheme in this country.

Table 4.14 Perceptions about driving experiences through the heavy traffic congestion

Perception Frequency Percentage

Very bad 67 60.9

Moderately bad 28 25.5

Bad 12 10.9

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Good 2 1.8

Moderately good 1 0.9

Very good 0 0

Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

To double check if the respondents were being consistent and if they were being honest enough

in responding to some of the questions posed to them, a follow-up question was asked

concerning the satisfaction private car owners who drove in their own vehicles derive instead of

joining the few public metro buses in the system. Incredibly, eighty-eight people representing

80% claimed they were satisfied going to work in their own vehicles. In fact, with this kind of

enthusiastic response coming from the people, it is really unclear if they would change their

behaviour. The construction and maintenance of roadways has been the policy where some new

roadways are being constructed and existing ones are being improved to supposedly cater for the

increase in traffic volumes and in travel demand. This policy to an extent offers some solution

towards solving the problem, however, it is not certain if this has any prospects in the long run in

terms of helping curb traffic congestion.

Table 4.15 Respondents satisfaction to go to work in own car

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 88 80

NO 22 20

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Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

On the issue of riding on a bus instead of the private car, the study tried to enquire if they would

have preferred to use the public transport services that were more efficient to enable them arrive

at their activity points or destinations on time. Again, majority of them responded in the

affirmative. Geographically speaking, all the routes/corridors as demarcated earlier on and the

drivers who drove on these routes expressed similar viewpoint although the traffic volumes on

these routes are not similar. Congestion although not so bad at the moment on some of these

corridors as compared to others, should be taken as a grave nuisance which demand the needed

attention of all of us, especially those at the helm of affairs who make decisions regarding these

issues. The tables below show us this sharp dichotomy between the views expressed by these

respondents.

Table 4.16 Those who would consider using public transport system to work

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 93 84.5

NO 17 15.5

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Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

Table 4.17 Perceptions about Traffic Congestion Causing Lateness to Work

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 74 67.3

NO 20 18.2

NON-RESPONSE 16 14.5

Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

As can be seen in the tables above, peoples’ perceptions about such issues as congestion in the

CBD of Accra causing delays, has actually been the driving forces behind riding in their private

vehicles to work instead of joining any form of mass public transport to their work places. Again,

as evident in table 4.16 above, a significant number of these people are nevertheless, prepared to

go to work on board any form of efficient public transportation. These therefore give us the

impression of the potentials of the mass public transport services in helping solve the problem.

This is therefore an affirmation of the proposition made earlier on that the reduction in the

number of low capacity vehicles entering the study area may be a function of road pricing. The

system must be enhanced to attract the masses that are prepared at all times to patronize the

services. Indeed, one private car driver testified that it would be cheaper and more economical

for him to ride on the public bus to work if the system was that efficient. Here’s what he said:

Box 5

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“I would be able to save the money I spend on buying fuel all the time on other things like taking care of expenses at home”

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Comments such as this were found across the sampled population on almost all the routes

throughout the study area. For instance, on the Kasoa-Mallam-Route or Corridor to the CBD, the

travelers who use this route claim they spend nearly three hours sometimes just driving through

the morning traffic jam to work, and this means spending extra money on fuel. The claims by

these drivers along this route were found among the ones who also drove along the Teshie-

Nugua-Accra corridor into the CBD on daily basis for work and other things. The soaring fuel

price on the international market and for that matter in Ghana has been a thing of great concern

to most of these folks. The author of this thesis is of the view that all these perceptions

concerning the effects of traffic congestion, and lamentations of fuel prices which do not even

bring any changes in the travel behaviour of the people although it is supposed to deter people,

and the possibility of boarding public transports amongst others, create in his view, a fertile

ground for us to take a second look at our road traffic management strategy. The country’s

population is increasing; more and more people are becoming better educated; governments as

well as the entire people of this country are more determined than ever to get the economy on a

sound footing. All of these phenomena put together, means that movements of goods and

services, and people in space have to be better enhanced to lead us onto achieving the

development goals set forth in the GPRS document as discussed earlier, and that in the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as Ghana is part of the global economy. Some

of the objectives set forth in the NEPAD document are as follows:

To reduce delays in cross-border movement of people, goods and services.

To reduce waiting-time in the port

To promote economic activity and cross-border trades through improved land transport

linkages, and

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To increase air passenger and freight linkages across Africa’s sub-regions.

These objectives cannot be achieved if the internal mobility and accessibility crises in the

respective countries are not pragmatically attended to. Better management of traffic congestion

must overcome delays that are basically caused by long queues as a result of congestion on the

roadways. The threat congestion poses in the minds of the people cannot be taken for granted.

And, one cannot deny these claims made by the people. During one of the visits to the CBD, the

team got locked up in a jam on the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue when visiting that section of the

network in the CBD. The view of one respondent has been expressed in the box below:

Box 6

The investigation of the correlation between psychological stress and traffic congestion is

beyond the scope of this work for now, but one can generally tell by the way and manner these

drivers behaved in queues that they are going through stressful conditions. Some of them had to

scream at the top of their voices at other drivers who were not moving to fill the small gaps left

ahead of them. This might not appear to be a weighty problem to some, but it is indeed, an

alarming situation that need not be overlooked. The consequences of this is ailing population,

which would in a long run affect the productivity of the country, hence shattering our dreams of

becoming a middle-income country by the year 2020 and beyond. Scholars such as Addo (1979)

and Mabogunje (1980) commonly observed that development in its modern form means more

than a mere economic growth or the growth in gross domestic product (GDP). It is to be seen as

the overall embodiment of the social; economic; political; and cultural as well as the

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“Sometimes I have to spend one hour in traffic before getting to my office, and when I close from the office, it takes me more than two hours to get home, and I become so stressed out”

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technological advancement of a group of people, and not to be seen in that parochial sense as

used to be the case centuries ago.

Yet another problem that traffic congestion causes is the pollution of our environments, which on

many occasions has been relegated to the background in many developing countries, as well as in

some developed nations. Experts observed that in general, there is a U-shaped relationship

between speed and emissions. That is to say emissions decline as speed increases (California Air

Resource Board, 1990). This simply implies that the more speed increases; emission declines up

to about 80 to 96 kilometers per hour, then at this point, emission increases again with higher

speeds. It was observed in the Californian case further that, trips with more accelerations and

decelerations result in higher emissions than those with constant speed.

According to Sampath et al (1991), emissions are also somewhat dependent on the type of

vehicle used in trip making. For example, the presence or absence of a catalytic converter affects

the emissions from a vehicle. Emissions, he observed are different between diesel engines and

gasoline-powered engines. The former, he said tend to have lower hydrocarbon and carbon

monoxide emissions and considerably higher particulate emissions than the latter group of

vehicles- gasoline-powered. Unfortunately in our Ghanaian case, most of our vehicles fall within

the latter group of vehicles, and since in our case we do not manufacture vehicles tailored to our

domestic needs and problems, it would be almost impossible to stop the importation of such

vehicles. This makes pollution of our environment a serious case, but we rarely take this issue

very seriously or we simply are doing very little about this right now. So, the longer vehicles

wait in queues, the more emissions they will cause to our environment and consequently, pose

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health problems (respiratory diseases such as asthma etc.) to us, which are not compensated for

by the actors.

In this regard, most authorities hold the view that, road pricing has the potentials to reduce the

number of small capacity vehicles, encourages car sharing or car pooling, thereby reducing

congestion on the roads to a significant proportion and consequently, curbing the health related

problems emanating from congestion whilst improving the patronage of public transportation.

This is yet an affirmation that, the reduction in the number of low capacity vehicles entering the

study area may be a function of road pricing. It must be stated, however, that, road pricing alone

does not offer an express solution to the problem; it must be considered in line with all the other

forms of complementary traffic management strategies- such as; constructing new roadways,

expanding existing ones to cater for the demand in travel, and maintaining the existing network

to increase average speed. None of these measures should be looked at in isolation; they should

rather be considered holistically. By introducing a well-managed road pricing scheme, we can

therefore pay for some of the externalities that congestion imposes on others. Some of these

externalities in the views of the respondents at the AMA are summarized in box 7 below:

Box 7

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Delay to work Reduction in efficiency, productivity, and delays in distribution Health related cases such as asthma Pollution of the urban environment (both noise; water and air) Increased fuel costs as well as increases in government

expenditures Social, psychological and other related problems, etc.

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We may now try to ascertain the projected effects of road pricing on private car ownership and/

or use. So far, we have implicitly been trying to draw the link between the possible effects of

road pricing on the usage and/ or the ownership of private cars. In other words, are people likely

to use and/ or drive private cars any longer should road pricing be implemented? Answers to this

question have already been tackled up to this point implicitly. But just to reiterate and put in a

more concise structure, we wish to revisit the issue.

Table 4.18 below demonstrates the results from the field with regard to this question posed to

respondents during the field interview. After thoroughly explaining the concept of pricing the

roadway to these people and informing them about the merits and demerits therein, they were

asked what in their opinion, would be the possible effects of such a scheme on their intention of

owning a vehicle. It should be placed on record that this question was an open-ended one so as to

observe freely their responses. Nearly forty four per cent (44%) of the people who responded

indicated that implementing such a policy would reduce traffic congestion in the area in

question. According to this group, they would then park their cars at home and join the public

buses instead. Some also lamented about the need for parking spaces at certain distances away

from the city centre so they can park their vehicles and board the public buses. This would mean

they would have to use their private vehicles only on certain occasions, hence saving a lot of

money. This outcome/or finding affirms the proposition that, a relationship may exist between

road pricing and reduction in traffic congestion.

As portrayed in the data below, slightly over 28% of the respondents also believed that such a

mechanism is likely to increase the expenditure of people. Yes, very much so, since road pricing

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is a form of punitive measure to control and/ or check the travel behaviour of the people. The

other side of the discourse is that, before the measure is even implemented, there has to be

certain alternatives provided (for example: routes, multi-modal transport facilities, and of course,

a-well-laid out transport framework/structures). Some of these factors have already been taken

care of. What we need to do is to enforce the transport regulations in this country and to

strengthen the mandated bodies and institutions to efficiently discharge their duties without

unnecessary interferences from any individual or group of persons. Moreover, as we keep

mentioning, we need to also subject such a policy to public scrutiny, as has always been the

convention in the country, so that the issue would be looked at in a much broader perspective. As

Yildirim (2001:pp.8) observed:

“…the users should be informed and persuaded that tolling the roads will make life

easier in terms of congestion and public transportation…”

Table 4.18 Respondents perception about likely effects of road pricing

Effects Frequency Percentage

Reduce traffic 48 43.6

Discourage use of Private car 18 16.4

Increase expenditure 31 28.2

Restrict movement 13 11.8

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Total 110 100

Source; Fieldwork, 2006

What would be the likely consequences should road pricing be introduced? What are the things

to be done before a policy such as this possibly takes off? These are some of the questions that

this work seeks to answer. The revelations already noted in previous paragraphs in this chapter

and previous ones are all lending support to the purpose of this study. For instance, the

correlation between income levels and car ownership as demonstrated above, disclosed to us that

indeed there is a strong connection between the two variables (income and vehicles ownership).

In our quest to manage congestion as a country; we have to look into indicators such as income.

Thus as peoples’ standard of living is getting better, one should know that there is bound to be a

rise in travel demand subsequently, the supply of infrastructure should rise accordingly to match

demand, if not we would end up in a chaotic situation. Again our urban transport development

policy should be re-focused to place emphasis on a good and efficient mass transport system. In

short, this provides us with the needed scientific option to better forecast and plan ahead for the

future.

The study also tried to sort the views of respondents on what type or form of road pricing listed

below they would recommend/suggest for implementation should the need be. The outcome is

what has been displayed in the table below. Majority of the respondents supported cordon

pricing. In their view, this should be area based such that it would restrict people from driving

into this area, and they could therefore park their vehicles some distances from this area to board

the public metro buses. This would sound more appropriate a method to be applied if the scheme

is to be used as congestion management strategy instead of one solely for revenue mobilization.

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On a whole the responses by the private vehicle owners were encouraging and it provides us with

the way forward.

Table 4.19 Recommended types of Road Pricing to reduce/remove traffic congestion

Forms of Road Pricing Frequency Percentage

Cordons (area) pricing 61 55.5

Congestion/Value pricing 28 25.5

Road space rationing 8 7.3

Vehicle use fees 5 4.5

None Response 8 7.3

Total 110 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

4.8 Relationship between Road Pricing and the Use of Trotro/Mini Buses and Taxi

Under this objective, the study made an effort to examine, mostly in qualitative terms-since this

work was for the most part qualitative; any possible relationship that may be found between

pricing the road and the use of commercial vehicle such as taxis and mini buses (trotro) in the

likely event that road pricing is introduced. Pricing the roads, as experts portray, is likely to

cause a rebound effect if care is not taken. Estache et al (2000:pp.240), observed that:

“…Overall, average daily traffic volumes in excess of 10,000 vehicles per day seem to be

required to attract private capital in the implementation of road toll projects…”

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The authorities quoted above also observed that toll roads could be classified as congestion

relievers; intercity arterials; development roads; or bridges and tunnels. Congestion relievers

are relatively short roads built to relieve traffic on the existing urban routes or networks. These

types of roads, they acknowledge, are expensive to build due to land costs, nonetheless, they

generally have significant revenue potentials because they tend to serve heavy traffic demand.

The high land acquisition and construction costs, however, may require high tolls if privately

financed. As the authors acknowledged, pricing decisions and regulatory oversight become

important. They went on to say that because congestion may be concentrated at peak periods,

time-of-day, other variable pricing schemes (like cordon pricing, road space rationing and even

road pricing etc.) may be required. Tolling, they say is becoming more widely used as a

mechanism to manage traffic demand on increasing congested highways.

After explaining the concept of road pricing to respondents in this category, they were asked if

they would welcome this new ‘double-edged’ management strategy as a mechanism to deal with

the traffic congestion that they would have to live with on routine basis as they have lamented.

Table 4.20 below shows the responses to this question. Out of the total number of the taxi and

trotro operators interviewed, 22 representing 73.3% answered in the affirmative. The question

was intended to only give us a fair idea of the possible consequences of road pricing on the

operations in this group should such a scheme be introduced. We were prompted to ask a

follow-up question to see what they would do should such a scheme be introduced. The answers

were in the affirmative. Below is what one taxi driver has to say:

Box 8

127

“…I go pay to go there and take passengers. I go fit make more money to cover the money I pay…”

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The view of this respondent represents that of many. These certainly affirm the propositions

made earlier that; a relationship may exist between road pricing and reduction in traffic

congestion and that reduction in the number of low capacity vehicles entering the study area may

be a function of road pricing. People are aware of the fact that the CBD offers tremendous

economic potentials and they would not loose if they make any investment there. We should,

however, learn from the Singaporean example where the charges for taxis that go in and out of

the CBD several times within a single day were phased out in a matter of three years. Of course

there is the other group of people who also trust that they would find jobs with the mass transport

services if the organization expands. In short, people have absolute confidence in such a system

to help manage the very problem that has bedeviled them for several decades now.

Table 4.20 Acceptance of Road Pricing as a license to enter CBD

Response Frequency Percentage

YES 22 73.3

NO 8 26.7

Total 30 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

The views of those who are prone to say no to such a policy and the reasons that are likely to

prompt their stand were also sought. The margin of those who thought a policy such as road

pricing would have little bearing on traffic congestion, were negligible as compared to the total

sampled population. Let us take the argument away from the issue of absolute numbers. The fact

remains that their worries and grievances are certainly to be considered for further deliberations.

At the end of the discussions with them, it turned out that people were thinking that there exist

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already too many forms of taxes imposed on commercial vehicle drivers in this country. It was

not too hard to cogitate that they were certainly viewing road-pricing as a form of tax. Certainly

road pricing is a form of punitive measure instituted to regulate/manage the problem of traffic

congestion in mainly urban environs. However, at the same time, many people also view it as a

source of raising funds to augment other sources of funding meant for the construction and

maintenance of transportation infrastructure. It should therefore not be viewed as a tax. This is a

misconception that must be promptly corrected.

Owing to some of these misconceptions and skepticisms that loom in the minds of people, the

purpose of implementing road tolls or pricing the roads should be clearly specified to the road

users. This is an assertion many experts such as Yildirim and others agree with. If this was not

done, people would still lack confidence in the system and would still be skeptical about its

purpose making its’ acceptance very difficult. Professor Glaister at the Imperial College in

London clearly observed on a BBC programme dabbed: BBC Radio 4’s in 2007 as follows:

Box 9

Box 10

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“…It was important for ministers to make it clear where the extra money generated would be spent…" Professor Stephen Glaister, 2007

“… If you spent the money reducing fuel duty… it would make a big benefit in the rural areas…”

“…But if you keep the money to spend it on public transport or improving the road network, that’s quite a different thing and that would look very different in cities and in rural areas…” Glaister, 2007

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On the other hand, the people who were against the implementation of such a policy also have

given their reasons for not supporting such a policy. But on a whole the available data suggest

that those who were for the implementation of such a policy should the need be, numerically out-

numbered their counterparts on the other side of the divide. This is an indication that, such a

scheme could be embraced or has a high probability of being welcomed should it be introduced.

However, a study such as this one should be carried out on a large scale to determine the full

scale benefits that road pricing has over other methods for managing or controlling congestion in

our cities.

Table 4.21 Reasons for not accepting Road Pricing

Response Frequency Percentage

Can’t remove traffic congestion completely 2 25

No guarantee of passengers in the area 2 25

So many taxes on vehicles already 4 50

Total 8 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

The table above needs no further explanation as it speaks for itself. Clearly, as regards the issue

of pricing reducing traffic congestion, eight people feel it could not remove traffic congestion. It

is interesting to note that these people are not saying that it cannot remove traffic congestion, but

their concern is about it removing the congestion completely. Honestly, the goal of this work is

the reduction of traffic congestion to its barest minimum, and not a complete removal of traffic

congestion from the roadways. Congestion will always be with us in as much as we try to better

our lots. In effect, these people do not really seem to have any problem with the policy as a

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matter of fact. They are only expressing their worries in a different manner, which is nonetheless,

a healthy thing to begin with. This should be a welcome concern. We could also observe that the

views, as expressed by a group of commercial drivers, are very much similar to those expressed

by a section of Londoners in Great Britain at the time their government was considering a-wide-

scale implementation of road pricing. For example the Independent Transport Commission in

Britain (2005) observed that:

Box 11

Certainly the purpose is to keep drivers off certain parts of the road network during certain times

of the day so they could use other sections of the network instead. One apprehension also

expressed by this same commission, was that, such a policy would lead some motorists to detour

along country lanes to avoid paying extra on major roads. However, in the Ghanaian case, this

would not be a problem as the chief purpose is not to generate revenue but to manage congestion

and to encourage a modal shift. Hence, it would rather be a-welcome-news when road users

divert attention to other routes. But once a person drives into the CBD, they would be obliged to

pay these tolls.

Another issue people often raised is that the scheme is likely to cut traffic congestion on busier

roads by making journeys more predictable and instead of switching to public transport, drivers

would try to drive early or late to avoid high charges. They may also opt for car sharing. But, the

ultimate goal is to get many of the small or low capacity vehicles off the roads in order to reduce

their numbers on the roads thereby curbing congestion. Once this aim is achieved, we could

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“…Road pricing proposals will not keep motorists off the roads but will change where and when they drive…”

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possibly say that the scheme has the capacity to manage the situation. Nonetheless the issue of

diverting to rural routes if it would create the very problem of congestion should not be taken

lightly. This is what we have been referring to all along- to manage the situation, not to eradicate

or to permanently remove it from the system. The interview with the 112 private vehicle

owner/drivers as demonstrated earlier revealed that majority of those interviewed were more than

willing to use public transportation should their services become efficient enough as per the

judgment of the people. Hence the way forward is to better equip or resource these public buses

to have the capacity to offer the best attractive and desirable service that would make it possible

for people to patronize their services.

Finally, the fear expressed by the Independent Transport Commission in Britain which bear a lot

of semblance with those expressed by the members of our sampled population was the danger of

road pricing adding up to the current or the existing car tax and fuel duty. The Commission is of

the view that it would amount to a few pounds extra a week for the average household. On the

other hand, the cost of the health hazards (in terms of pollution amongst other things) cannot be

sacrificed for high fuel tax. Congestion also imposes a lot of psychological trauma on the people,

which has never been quantified in monetary terms (at least not in Ghana). The issue of

increasing the expenditure of the road user is neither here nor there since their very actions cause

harm to other humans. As Yildirim (2001), and others observed, people have to be responsible

for the external cost they impose on others. The diagram below echoes the responses of

respondents.

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All thirty interviewees representing a total of one hundred (100) per cent claimed that road traffic

congestion in the CBD of Accra is of great concern to them. This was the popular concern

throughout the entire survey in the area, and pragmatic solution is needed to arrest or cut back

the situation to prevent any further deterioration. Intervention programmes must be implemented

within certain time intervals and just when the situation calls for it. The famous Singaporean

example is a good lesson here. As soon as they recognized that the measures they had in place in

1972 and early part of 1975 were not working, they marshaled all the essential logistics to tackle

the problem. Yildirim (2001:pp.3) has this to say:

“…Congestion is an inevitable part of everyday life in most metropolitan areas. It is

clear from… that congestion imposes a high burden on the people using the

transportation system in those areas. Thus transportation planning agencies use several

traffic management tools like road pricing and parking pricing in order to restrain the

traffic and reduce the congestion level on the transportation network…”

Table 4.22 Drivers Perception of Road Traffic Congestion

Response Frequency Percentage

Yes 30 100

No 0 0

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Total 30 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

As portrayed in table 4.23 below, it turns out that enforcement of traffic regulations in the

country should be employed to complement the efforts of road pricing scheme should the scheme

be introduced. This would therefore lead to the full realization of the potential benefits of the

scheme. It should, however, be mentioned that the launching of the Urban Transport Project by

the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Transportation and the Department of Urban

Roads is a laudable idea. The project is the design of an Area Wide Management System, which

involves the provision of a clean reliable power supply for uninterrupted operations of an area-

wide traffic control system. It also involves the development of a comprehensive signal and

electrical design standard; provision and installation of detection devices at all signalized

junctions. Furthermore, there would also be the provision of an advanced signal control system

and wireless communications between the field signal controllers and the Traffic Management

Centre.

This effort may form part of the preparation works for a possible implementation of a road

pricing scheme in the future. If the detection devices record the offenders of traffic regulations,

there must be the will to bring these people to book. The form/type of punishment is not yet

clear, but either way, this can bring a lot of revenue to the state to help pay for the cost that

would be incurred in implementing this management system. The funds for the project are

coming from development partners with a small fraction from the Government of Ghana. Road

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pricing if efficiently and effectively managed would give us the opportunity to raise money

domestically and at the same time help manage congestion on certain roads in the CBD.

Table 4.23 Suggested Measures by the Public to Complement Road Pricing to Check Congestion

Suggestion Frequency Percentage

Enforce traffic regulations 10 33.3

Improve road infrastructure 7 23.3

Regular traffic lights operation 2 6.7

Educate stakeholders 5 16.7

Road space rationing 6 20.0

Total 30 100

Source: Fieldwork, 2006

As in the case of private car drivers/owners, commercial vehicle drivers were also asked the

question relating to their perceptions on the possible prospects of road pricing if implemented.

As anticipated, there were brilliant contributions from this category. Table 4.24 below

demonstrates the sanitized views of the people. The views expressed by these people fall in line

with most ideas expressed in the literature regarding the topic under investigation. Combining

the views of this category and those of private car owners, and what already existed in the

literature, one can therefore arrive at a broader picture. In fact, the views expressed below also

re-emphasize the position of many experts in this area. Like the private car owners, the group of

commercial vehicle owners/drivers also thinks that road pricing if implemented would enhance

the free flow of vehicular and pedestrian movements in the CBD as well as help mobilize

revenue for road construction projects and maintenance.

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According to the AMA, the idea as to what new strategies the Metropolis has initiated or is

planning to put forward to regulate the traffic congestion in the CBD is a timely one. They are

planning on infusing the issue of pricing certain sections of the roadways into a strategy of

revenue mobilization and waste management within the city of Accra. They were also quick to

add that, this policy is still at its’ embryonic stages and that nothing is tangible as of now. They

mentioned that the idea was to make it expensive and/ or prohibitive to drive into the central

business district of Accra, but at the same time help mobilize revenue for developmental projects

in the city. As we were told during our interview with these officials, the deliberation generated a

heated debate. But the good aspect of it is that at least members agreed there has to be a form of

pricing of sections of the roadways in the city.

They further observed that before going all out on the issue of pricing in the metropolis, there has

to be some necessary and pertinent measures (or as they termed it, certain parameters) put in

place. Below in the box were some of the views expressed at the interview:

Box 12

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There has to be development framework or Concept A definition of workable definition of congestion Discussions with stakeholders in the country Provision of parking space To calculate the actual number of vehicles that ply in the

CBD Limit vehicles (e.g. trotro) to certain routes only Make sure private cars with only one person must pay

more

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The views of all the two hundred and ten interviewees as regards the possible prospects of road

pricing have been illustrated in the table below. These are general concerns by the very people

who are going to be affected in one way or the other should a policy such as road pricing be

introduced in the CBD of Accra. Twenty-nine per cent (29%) of those interviewed, think that if

implemented, road pricing has the benefit of reducing congestion and improving vehicular and

pedestrian movements in areas in the CBD.

Table 4.24 Prospects of Implementing Road Pricing in the CBD

Prospects Frequency Percentage

Free vehicular & pedestrian movement 61 29.0

Improve road safety 8 3.8

Generate revenue 40 19.0

Increase public bus patronage 15 7.1

Reduce fuel consumption 34 16.2

Reduce cars entering Accra Central 43 20.5

No Prospects 9 4.3

Total 210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

Yildirim (2001), Glaister, and others have all questioned such things as to the uses to which the

money generated from the scheme is to be put. Educating the people about the scheme and

possibly on even any adverse effect if the need be is, in our view, the first step towards

addressing any perception of embezzlement in the minds of the people, and probably any other

forms of threat as illustrated by table 4.25 below. Steps such as these are likely to win the

confidence of the stakeholders and ultimately their trust in the system thereby making the nation

accomplish the right results. The city of London for example is on record to have introduced

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congestion pricing in part of its downtown area in 2003. The pricing has succeeded in reducing

traffic volumes by about 15 per cent, and average traffic speeds have also increased by about 22

per cent (The Economist, 9th June 2005). Another example worthy of note is that of Singapore.

After the implementation in 1975, traffic volume was known to have reduced by more than 50%.

Also average traffic speed was recorded to have doubled for 36 km/hr in the CBD.

Table 4.25 Perceptions on Possible Threats to Implementing Road Pricing

Problems Frequency Percentage

Unwillingness to pay 83 39.5

Logistical/Technical problems 16 7.6

Difficulty in getting car in Accra 36 17.1

Increase in fares 31 14.8

Revenue Misappropriation 19 9.0

Increase expenses on vehicles 25 11.9

Total 210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

It is interesting to note that the responses of the people pointed to a clear acceptance of the

scheme, should it be implemented in this country. Generally speaking, it appears that if their

concerns raised would be taken more seriously and factored into any decision making process

regarding this particular subject matter, then the way forward would be something encouraging

contrary to what some experts think- for example that road pricing is what economists loved, but

which the people hate (Christainsen, 2006). The table below again demonstrates the views

expressed by the people as to whether they were willing to accept the policy.

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This study was conducted within a fraction of the rather large population of Ghana and for that

matter, only within a small fraction of the entire population of the city of Accra. Therefore it

would be statistically unacceptable to conclude at this point that people would accept the policy

wholeheartedly for even in Singapore there were few political squabbles on the issue among

politicians. Table 4.26 illustrates the views of the respondents.

Table 4.26 Acceptance and/ or Rejection of Road Pricing

Response Frequency Percentage

Yes 151 71.9

No 59 28.1

Total 210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

4.9 Effects of Road Pricing on the Operations of Public Transportation

We posed some questions to the operators of a few of the public metro buses in the metropolis

of Accra in order to observe the probable effects of road pricing on their activities. The few ones

interviewed were; the Metro Mass Transport (MMT), Kingdom Transport Services, Pegah

Transport Services, and other public bus operators.

The table below shows the various groups and the break down of the number of people talked to

in those organizations. Usually the view of the respective managers represents the positions of

the entire group or organization. However, we also had discussions with others so as to seek their

personal opinions on this subject, but that does not really represent the position of their

respective organizations. As table 4.27 below shows, MMT operators have the highest number of

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buses that operate in the Accra Metropolis. The Public Relations Manager of the organization

stated that, currently they have only one bus operating on the route to the CBD of Accra since it

is not efficient to allocate more buses to that route at the moment. Buses are not able to return to

station in time due to heavy traffic congestion amidst other factors. They are presently operating

on the following corridors: Lartebiokorshie; Adenta; Tema; Kaneshie; and Kwashiman.

Table 4.27 Various Public Metro Transport Operators

Transport Groups Respondents Percentage No. of Buses

Metro Mass Transport 3 15 275

Kingdom Transport 5 25 X

Pegah Tranport 5 25 X

Others 7 35 98

Total 20 100 373

Source: fieldwork, 2006. Note: X denotes the reluctance of the interviewees in providing information.

An attempt was made to find out from him what their position was with respect to the issue of

road pricing and if they think such a policy could make it easy for them to allocate more or

adequate number of buses to ply that section of the city. The response of the Manager is as put in

the box below:

Box 13

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The problem is not about the number of buses per se, it has to do with the delay of the bus as a result of the heavy presence of congestion in the area. And we welcome any policy to decongest the area for swift movement to take place.

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Here again the problem as put forward by this person is not about assigning more buses to a

particular route, but it has basically to do with the swift movement and return of the buses. He

admitted that, should the congestion in that area be improved upon; there might not even be the

need to assign more than two buses to that route, based on their technical assessment of the new

situation.

It was apparent throughout the field data gathering and interview that, people in general were not

pleased with the problem of traffic congestion. Nevertheless their optimism towards finding

solution to the problem remains positive, which is a good thing. We also need to rely on the use

of a multidisciplinary approach to solve the problem as the problem itself is a cause of many

complex factors. It is not possible for us as a people, to easily build our way out of congestion by

relying solely on a single strategy. There is the need for some new road capacities to be built to

complement the existing ones. At the same time we need to reconcile this ‘traditional’

way/method of road infrastructural improvement with the policy of demand management and

traffic management.

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS, AND CONCLUSION

5.1 Chapter Overview

The summary of the findings have been discussed in this chapter. Some recommendations

regarding any possible implementation of a road pricing scheme in the probable future have also

been made in this chapter. These recommendations were made drawing inspiration from other

places around the globe as well as what is currently happening elsewhere in other parts of the

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world concerning how to manage the problem of traffic congestion. The last section of this

chapter is the conclusion.

5.2 Summary of Findings

The average age of people interviewed was 41yrs. This perhaps gave an impression that any

policy regarding driving within the central business district of Accra should take into account the

needs of this age group. But the spread of the age data around this average reveals the actual

dispersion of the ages across the population of people who drove into and/ or from the CBD on

daily basis; an indication that there were people below the mean age who also drive within the

CBD of Accra on daily basis. In this respect, the needs of this other group should also be

factored into any decision making process. These different age groups portray the general

character of the economically active group within the study area. There were people around

68yrs who were still involved in active economic activities in the CBD. This general pattern is

very vital for planning.

The disparity found in sexes among the driving population was not that encouraging, but it does

give a general idea as to which sex group possesses more wealth. There were more than thrice as

many men who drove in the central business district of Accra as compared to the female

counterparts. This could partly be associated with the disparity between the circumstances of the

females’ economic and/ or their financial strengths as against that of their male counterpart. One

can also liken this disparity to those who drove/own private vehicle. Among this category, the

male population is again dominant. The picture is the same for those who drove commercial and

all other forms/types of vehicles. No female commercial vehicle driver in the city centre was

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seen; a development one can attribute to specialization in occupations defined by gender roles.

Generally people tend to brand the driving profession as a high-risk occupation, and mostly such

jobs were reserved for men. This probably accounts for the wide disparity in the numbers of

males who drove as compared to their female counterparts across the entire study area.

On education, we found out that almost all the two hundred and ten people interviewed have

some form of education. Those who had high level of education were those with the polytechnic

and/ or university education. It is this group who drove mostly the private cars in the study area,

whilst almost all the commercial vehicle drivers had at least Primary/ or Elementary education.

One alarming development that was observed was how people acquired driver’s license as

against their poor knowledge of driving regulations and abysmal knowledge of road-markings.

This disturbing trend was found among the entire population interviewed irrespective of their

educational backgrounds and/ or levels. This trend calls for prompt action to reverse the decay.

For more than 80% of the people interviewed to possess driver’s license without good

knowledge of road signs, markings and regulation is really a cause for concern. Perhaps we

could partly attribute the high incidence of accidents reported on daily basis to this tendency.

Regarding the extent of growth of the CBD of Accra and the extent to which it influences its

environs, the CBD could only be likened to the behaviour of a magnetic field. It pulls people

from all over the countryside and even outside the territorial boundaries of Ghana. We could

only say that the city of Accra has tremendous influence on its environs, and this calls for a

better planning of facilities and infrastructure- chief among them is transportation infrastructure,

in order to take care of better service delivery and the increasing growth in the vehicle ownership

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and delays to travel. Another obsession that was observed throughout the data collection and

analysis was the issue concerning the time ranges that people drive into and from the city centre.

A total of 162 people drove into and from the city centre on daily basis. It also became apparent

that more than 48% of the people drove into the CBD in the mornings between 7.30am and

10.00am mostly on weekdays. This could perfectly be described as the morning rush hours. The

evenings on weekdays are pretty much the same. These present the individuals the opportunity to

plan ahead of time. Almost 38% of the people who traveled to the CBD went solely for to

transact business. It was also clear that only a small margin of respondents went to the CBD to

occasionally visit friends and relatives during business hours. This development is an indication

that transportation facilities to a large extent are strictly used for economic reasons, and it has

really been used in this respect by many of our people.

Probably the single most significant finding was the existence (or the re-discovery at least in the

Ghanaian case) of relationship between income level and car ownership among the

owners/drivers of private cars in the CBD of Accra. The income samples collected were

correlated against the number of cars respondents claimed they owned/ or drive. The correlation

coefficient found was a very strong one- 0.82 at a confidence level of 95 percent (refer to

Appendix B). This illustrates that there truly exists a relationship between these two variables

and if the assumptions and propositions underlined under chapter one are any thing to go by,

then we should therefore be mindful that a rise in the independent variable is very likely to have

a concomitant rise in the dependent variable. It therefore means that we need to develop proper

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and better planning measures to combat the problem of road traffic congestion in the not distant

future.

It was further discovered that there is a high sense of perception about vehicle ownership should

incomes go up. Generally, people have good sense of feeling about owning vehicles should their

incomes increase in the future. This phenomenon should therefore prompt us to re-think of

concrete measures to cater for traffic congestion in the CBD of Accra given that we cannot

physically extend the roadways in the CBD beyond its current level (scope). Again, another

qualitative indicator that lend support to the relationship described above as regards the two

variables (income and number of private cars), was the general feelings among the people that

lateness to their work places was chiefly due to the heavy congestion on the roadways in the

CBD. The inability of the people to get home on time has also been attributed to the same

phenomenon. In short, congestion was identified as the chief cause of most of these problems.

Among the reasons provided by private car owners/ or drivers for riding in their cars, traffic

congestion and avoidance of long queues featured most prominently. Over 20% of respondents

out of the total sampled population of this category think that they like to ride in their own cars

because the other types of vehicles waste too much time before reaching their destinations. In

the same vein, more than 30% of the people interviewed thought that traffic congestion is the

reason why they like riding in their private cars to work. Thus in their opinion, it is faster to ride

in their own vehicles to their activity points since they could choose to leave their homes at any

time they so wish. Contrary to popular opinions, less than eight per cent of those interviewed

think they love riding in their private cars for comfort or for convenience. These people prefer to

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ride in their own cars to work rather than any other form of transport. This then gives us a

positive signal that some people no matter the consequence would not change their behaviours,

and would be ready to pay the price for their comfort thus helping raise revenue for the state.

Others would also change their behaviours and go for a more efficient and reliable transportation

system. These directions could serve as a basis to introduce or implement a-three-type price

system in case we decide to go road pricing in the near possible future. For instance we could

have a road-pricing scheme that incorporates the following: price discrimination; user charges;

and set-up charges.

Generally there is a good feeling amongst the people that suggest their willingness to accept such

a policy should there be the need to implement it in the CBD of Accra. Amongst all categories of

respondents’ interviewed, the general feeling concerning pricing is that there is a great

probability that such a policy could be allowed to operate if the people are well educated about

the subject and if they are re-assured about the proper use of the proceeds from such a scheme.

It was further gathered from the findings that there were other groups of people interviewed who

do not agree with their counterparts who think the scheme when implemented would help solve

the problem of traffic congestion. It is not in our interest to play down the views of these other

groups since such critics are very crucial in any decision-making. There has really not been any

single attempt at implementing road pricing without any form of protest from the people. Till

today, the Singaporean model has some political protests from both the general population as

well as from the members of parliament, but their criticism has to do more with the effectiveness

of the scheme. Christainsen (2006:pp.72) stated as follows:

‘…it should be emphasized that road pricing is viewed in Singapore as only one part of

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an eclectic approach to transportation management, and even in Singapore-where one

political party has dominated the government-there are some political barriers to

effective pricing’.

Consequently, it would have been out of place if there were no such questions or criticisms on

this subject from the people interviewed.

5.3 Policy Recommendations

The foremost attempt by the researcher towards making any such recommendations as regards

the subject under investigation was to find out from the people at the grassroots their views on

the matter. Table 5.2 below summarizes the views of the people. The following are

recommended for paving the way for any possible implementation of road pricing as a strategic

mechanism for reducing road traffic congestion in urban areas especially that of the city centre as

projected by this thesis.

The problem of road haulage and congestion has been with us for a very long time now, and the

causes of this congestion have been attributed to many factors. Tamakloe (1989) for example

attributes the problem to the following amongst other factors:

“…The large proportion of personal means of transport, especially, private cars and

taxis, which carry a relatively small proportion of the demand for person movements in

our cities. For example, in Accra and Kumasi about 67 per cent of all vehicle journeys

are undertaken by cars and taxis. This is because the motor car is used for all kinds of

journeys; for work, for shopping, and for social journeys…”

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This relationship, we have already established in previous paragraphs, and the way forward is to

take that pain-staking measure to combat this rot from escalating to the level that would become

very difficult if not practically impossible to resolve. Our earlier discovery tells us that, there is a

relationship between income levels of people and their quest or the desire to acquire more

vehicles if the need be, and this would continue to fuel the problem of congestion. Again, as

population grows coupled with the ever-burning desire of governments and the masses to build a

healthy economy (as espoused in the GPRS document), the problem is bound to continue if we

do not find practical solution quickly. This therefore means that we have to take pragmatic steps

towards curbing the menace before it gets out of control.

Table 5.1 Recommendations to Facilitate the Introduction of Road Pricing

Implementation Process Frequency Percentage

Good research and planning 39 18.6

Involve major stakeholders 24 11.4

Public education 74 35.2

Improve MMT & PTS 15 7.1

Enforce traffic regulations 27 12.9

Institute task force 24 11.4

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Construct toll gates 7 3.3

Total 210 100

Source: fieldwork, 2006

The remedies proposed by others like Tamakloe (1989) Segbefia (2000) and Addo (2006) are

indeed suggestions we have to critically look into. An example here is what Segbefia termed

telecommuting: - the partial or total substitution of telecommunications, with or without

assistance of computers, for the twice daily commute to/from work (Nilles, 1988).

Telecommuting is a transportation control measure/ or strategy for reducing the physical travel

demand of people or improving the flow of vehicular traffic, thereby ensuring air quality and

many others. On the contrary, we must also insinuate that, studies are still on-going in this area;

therefore, a lot of caution needs to be exercised in this regard. In our part of the world, as rightly

identified by Segbefia (2000), this process can be hampered by the non-availability of

telecommunication facilities in remote areas or peri-urban communities. This is bound to make

such a method almost impossible to use here albeit its’ immense potential in curbing physical

travel demand and consequently in reducing congestion on the roads. Besides the impairment to

the use of such a measure in solving our rather ‘long-deep-routed’ road haulage problem,

telecommuting remains an untried strategy on a wide scale. Still other measures such as ‘smart or

smarter travel choices’ (including: travel planning, proper cycle facilities, marketing of public

transport, and of course telecommuting) can be used to augment the efforts of road pricing in

realizing our objective of improving accessibility to activity points in space.

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Urban traffic congestion has been a challenge for many decades now, and all cities around the

world have been looking for the most feasible way out of the problem using many different

means, as the problem itself is a cause of multiple factors. Some of the measures can be grouped

as the ones below:

The construction of new road capacities or new roadways

The improvement in existing road and rail network projects or programmes, and

The policy on demand and traffic management

It is therefore imperative that we do not have to compromise on any of these three approaches

when tackling this menace. In fact, these have been the approaches adopted by most cities

around the world. Implicit in the third measure can be found the strategy under investigation-

road pricing. In most cities that have attempted to introduce/ or have introduced this measure as

an antidote to curb the problem of congestion, there was evidence about this strategy altering

greatly the travel behaviour of the people. What we need as a people determined to combat the

problem of congestion is a proper evaluation of the cost congestion imposes on us and an

understanding of the impact congestion has on our economy. This we need to do in order to

ascertain the full scale of the problem.

Governments have to recognize the importance of further research to increase understanding of

the full-scale impact of congestion. There is the need for a balanced, cost effective approach

through the process of appraising proposals for new roads, improving the existing roads, and

other policies aimed at reducing congestion on our roads in the CBD of the Accra Metropolis

before the situation gets out of control.

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Again, should road pricing be introduced in this country, the authorities need to ensure that the

quality of road transport deserves the costs it imposes on the people. There is therefore the need

for governments to set out the objectives of road pricing if we decide at any point to go road

pricing. However, care should be exercised not to let the issue become one of political discourse

as this has the potential of undermining the scheme’s efficiency and performance. Such an

objective should include the targets of reducing road traffic congestion, road accidents (deaths

and injuries), and the more current issue of climate change. The government’s objectives as

espoused in the GPRS documents relating to improving accessibility of the urban communities

should also be part of such an objective.

Experts such as Yildirim (2001) are of the view that the starting point of any possible attempt to

introduce a pricing scheme is to reflect better to motorists the costs of their driving to the people

and the entire communities in which they live. This should not be about whether motorists pay

more on the whole, but the notion should rather be about a system which allows the amount paid

to vary according to such factors as location, time of day, and vehicle type (for example, private

vehicle owners/ or drivers should pay more than taxis and trotro etc.). What needs to be

considered is whether revenue generated from such a scheme would fully cover the costs of

operating the scheme, improve public transport, reduce the cost of driving and fund local

economic rejuvenation (TSO: www.tso.co.uk/bookshop). Road pricing, it is said, must not be

sold to the people on an unworkable promise of how much money will be available to be spent,

and to what end. It is important for the government to prioritize investment in other areas. For

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example, the issue of providing public transportation, traffic management projects, and road

improvements etc must receive high priority.

Furthermore, in order to decide whether road pricing either on a national scale or on small scale,

would be acceptable or not, the people would need to know who would set the charges. Simply

put, all the stakeholders including local authorities and members of the political divide are to be

invited when it comes to this important subject of the fixing of charges. The issue of

transparency and accountability would have to be incorporated in any such proposal. This was

the cry of many people during the field data gathering. In our part of the world, the issue relating

to corruption is very widely spread and common among the population. Thus transparency and

accountability need to be dealt with very comprehensively and in its totality. If the whole attempt

of introducing any such measure with all its genuineness is compromised, then this might

undermine the whole scheme.

It is also a common knowledge that any such attempt to implement road pricing would require

strong commitment and direction from government. Such foremost leadership and commitment

have been seen coming from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly as well as from the Department

of Urban Roads. According to these officials, there are plans to inculcate the idea of road pricing

within a much wider policy framework of revenue mobilization and waste management strategy,

which is at an embryonic stage right now.

Another recommendation to get across is when considering the issue of implementing road

pricing in the future to help rescue the already deteriorating problem of congestion, we should

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take into account the much talked about subject of road safety. The national road safety

commission is already doing a lot in this direction, but more still needs to be done. It should be

an integral part of the scheme. For example, any possible and/ or potential road pricing scheme

in the strategic area under investigation would need to include consideration of possible

diversion impacts and how these impacts might be truncated so as not to compromise on safety

measures on that aspect of the network.

The key issue of transaction costs must also be considered. The costs of toll collection itself

scholars agree are not anything trivial and have very important implications for the success of the

scheme or otherwise. Christainsen (2006) cited that if tolls are collected simply by having

vehicles stop at a booth to hand someone bills or coins, or drop coins in a collection bin, then toll

collection itself can cause congestion. Vehicles, he observed would have to queue up to pay tolls.

In the case of Accra therefore drivers could be made to buy these area licenses on weekly or

monthly basis from an authorized body ahead of driving into the area to avert some of these very

problems of congestion, which we seek to eliminate. After enough funds have been mobilized,

we could purchase some of the latex technologies used in pricing regimes.

5.4 Conclusions

We need to always remember that the problem of traffic congestion is caused by multiple factors.

There is the human or the behavioural dimension to the problem; the design and/ or type of the

vehicles that are involved in the daily conveyance of people and goods, and in the delivery of

services; again there is also the engineering aspect of the roadway, which also forms part of the

problem. Colonial heritage is at least the other side of the problem. Lack of political will on the

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part of governments is yet another dimension to the problem of traffic congestion; and in general

the actions and inactions of the entire citizenry also contribute in various forms to the problem.

In this direction therefore, there is the need to handle the issue of congestion using a more

holistic approach and/ or methodology. We need for instance to re-examine our current

methods/strategies of trying to solve the problem and do a proper evaluation concerning the

performances of the strategies. It is also imperative to re-examine in both quantitative and

qualitative terms the costs that congestion poses to the general population of this country.

It is at this critical point that we need to turn our focus to the enormous potentials of road pricing

on easing the pressure congestion imposes on people, the economy, and governments as a whole.

Road pricing as has been demonstrated all along has the potentials to reduce the burden that

congestion poses to people in general. Governments are constantly under immense pressure from

citizens to provide transportation facilities in order to match current travel demand, but the

construction of such new road capacities involve huge fixed costs, which in most cases cannot be

borne by governments, especially in our country. This pressure on governments is a result of the

fact that roadways are still viewed in the social market perspective in most countries. However,

in Ghana, since we could hardly raise enough money from managing the roadways to finance

such new capacities, we have to, in many instances, resort to borrowings from the international

community to offset such huge fixed costs. No more of that, if road pricing is looked into

critically. Road pricing has been described in many spheres as a double-edged razor that could

help us mobilize revenue to support such investments and at the same time help reduce or curb

the problem of congestion in the central business districts.

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As demonstrated by the field discussions, there seems to be prospects as regards the introduction

of road pricing in this country. The people seem ever ready to help put an end to the problem of

congestion. A combination of these factors makes the ground fertile to explore the potentials of

road pricing. It should, however, be stated that road pricing alone does not offer the express

solution or ‘a one-stop-shop’ towards solving this herculean problem. We would have to keep all

the other strategies in place to complement the efforts of road pricing in order to arrive at a

holistic solution. For example the adherence to our transportation codes in this country must be a

strategic issue for all who use the roadways on daily basis. Pedestrian footbridges are lacking on

most of the roadways throughout the city of Accra. Measures need to be put in place to take

pedestrians off the streets from obstructing or interfering with traffic flows during busy hours.

There should also be appropriate road markings and signs to guide people as well as the drivers.

Driver knowledge tests need to be re-visited. The procedures for issuing driver’s licenses also

need to be re-examined by the authorities.

When all these issues are brought to the table, we can then arrive at a proper and a more realistic

solution of the problem. The issues having to do with telecommuting cannot be a substitute for

physical travel at least for now since most of our businesses and communities do not have access

to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Furthermore, the individuals who would

have avoided physical travel and use these technologies are themselves handicaped when it

comes to the appropriate knowledge in this arena. These factors make the use of telecommuting

almost impossible or difficult to be implemented at least in our parts of the world. Nevertheless,

this could be a possible area to look into or to explore in years to come. We therefore need a

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strategy like road pricing that could help alter the behaviour of people when it comes to the

usage of roadways in the central business district of Accra. In our part of the world, the causes of

congestion are mostly due to these behavioural factors. So, a strategy such as this-road pricing-

has the ability and capacity to alter peoples’ ways of doing things to a large degree.

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Demand Networks. A Ph.D Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of

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Websites Visited:

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www.bbc.co.uk/BBC/NEWS/UK

www.economist.com

www.mrt.gov.gh

APPENDIX A

TABLE SHOWING AGE FREQUENCY

Frequency

(F)

Class Marks

(X)

U=Xi-M/CFU

U2 FU2

20 20.5 -2 -40 4 80

63 30.5 -1 -63 1 63

55 40.5 0 0 0 0

35 50.5 1 35 1 35

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24 60.5 2 48 4 96

13 70.5 3 39 9 117

210 fu= 19 fu2 =391

To calculate the mean age we used the technique or the method known as the coding method:

The mean ≡ П = M + C [fu / f ]

M = the assumed or any guessed mean which we chose as 40.5

C = the class width which again according to the class interval chosen is 10

fi = 200 from the table above

fu= 21 again this can be seen in the above table.

Given the above then our mean = 40.5 + 10 (19 ∕210)

= 40.5 + 10 (0.0905)

= 40.5 + 0.905

= 41.4 Ans.

Therefore the mean age is approximately = 41yrs.

The Standard deviation was also calculated using the following method:

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c√[1/n∑fiui2 ─ (1/n∑fiui)2]

Again, given the formula above we can compute the standard deviation to the how the raw data

spread about the mean.

So then standard deviation = 10√[1/210(391) − (1/210*19) 2 ]

= 10√[0.005*391 − (0.005*19) 2]

= 10√[1.955 − 0.009025]

= 10√1.803975

= 10*1.343121365

= 13.43121365

Therefore the Standard Deviation of the Age distribution is approximately = 13yrs

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APPENDIX B

TABLE 1: SHOWING THE CORRELATION BETWEEN INCOME PER MONTH AND NUMBER OF

CARS OWNED BY RESPONDENTS

YEARS 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000Total

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Income

(X)

400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2000 ∑X=

10,800

Average

No. of

Vehicles

(Y)

1 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 5 ∑Y=

26

Using the Simple Regression or Correlation Equation: Yi = a +bXi which could also be termed

the predictive model or equation, we can then predict one the variables with respect to the other.

Where:

b = n∑xiyi – ∑xi*∑yi

n∑x2 – (∑x)2

And:

a = yˉ - bхˉ

TABLE 2: SHOWING THE TWO MEASURED VARIABLES IN QUESTION

Xi X2i Yi Y2

i (Xi * Yi)

400 160,000 1 1 400

600 360,000 2 4 1,200

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800 640,000 3 9 2,400

1000 1,000,000 3 9 3,000

1200 1,440,000 3 9 3,600

1400 1,960,000 3 9 4,200

1600 2,560,000 3 9 4,800

1800 3,240,000 3 9 5,400

2000 4,000,000 5 25 10,000

∑ Xi = 10,800 ∑ X2i =15,360,000 ∑ Yi =26 ∑ Y2

i =84 ∑(Xi * Yi)=35,000

Pls. note: Income (X) is quoted in the new Ghana cedis: ¢10,000=1GH¢=100Gp

∑Yi = 26 ∑Yi2 = 84

∑Xi2 = 10,800 ∑Xi

2 = 15,360,000

(∑xi)2 = 116,640,000 ∑Xi Yi = 35,000

(∑Yi)2 = 676

∑xi *∑yi = 10,800 * 26 = 280,800

Note that N = 9

X‾ = 400+600+800+1000+1200+1400+1600+1800+2000 = 1200

9

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Y‾ = 1+2+3+3+3+3+3+3+5 = 2.9

9

So, the value of ‘b’ as in the formula quoted above:

═ 9(35,000) − 280,800

9(15,360,000) − 116,640,000

═ 315,000 − 280,800

138,240,000 − 116,640,000

═ 34,200

21,600,000

═ 0.00158

Hence ‘b’ ═≡ 0.0016

Again, using the formula above we can obtain the value of ‘a’ since we now have the value of

‘b’:

The value of ‘a’ ═ 2.9 − 0.0016(1200)

═ 2.9 − 1.9

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═ 1

So, the value of ‘a’ ═ 1

Given these values therefore, we can now feed them into the predictive equation or the simple

regression equal quoted above to predict for instance the number of vehicles people are likely to

own should their incomes increase by certain margin.

Let’s then say the income of an employee increases to GH¢ 500, what is likely to be the number

of vehicle(s) that this person would own using the model above; Yi = a +bXi

Y = 1 + 0.0016(500)

= 1 + 0.8

Y = 1.8

So, we can say that the person is like to own approximately 2 vehicles in the future. This could

only be the case if all others factors remain constant though. We can also calculate the values of

the coefficient of correlation (r ) and the coefficient of determination ( r2 ).

Formula for calculating ‘r’ =

n∑xy − ∑x*∑y

√ [(n∑x2) − (∑x)2] [(n∑y2) – (∑y)2]

So, ‘r’ = 9(35,000) − ( 10,800* 26)

√ [(9 * 15,360,000) − (10,800)2] [(9 * 84) − (26)2]

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= 315,000 − 280,800

√[(138,240,000 − 116,640,000)(756 −676)]

= 34,200

√[ 21,600,000(80)]

= 34,200

√1,728,000,000

= 34,200

41569.21938

= 0.823

Hence ‘r’ approximately = 0.82

Therefore the coefficient of determination (r2 ) = (0.82)2

r2 is approximately = 0.67 or 67 %

Interpretation of the result: the correlation found between the two variables is best described as

a strong correlation, and it gives us a cause for an alarm since there is surely a correlation

between income and number of vehicles owned by people. One can also say that 67 per cent of

the variability in the criterion variable is predictable on the basis of the predictor variable owing

to the test ran on significance level as shown below:

The correlation coefficient, ρ, between X and Y is found to be 0.823. To test for the significance

of the correlation, we test the hypotheses:

H0: ρ = 0 versus H1: ρ 0.

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The test statistic is given by:

and the H0 is rejected if T > tn-2, α/2 where α is the level of significance of the test.

Now, from the data,

At 5 percent level of significance, tn-2, α/2 = t7, 0.025 = 2.365

Hence, we can reject H0 and conclude that the observed correlation between income and no. of

cars is statistically significant.

APPENDIX C

QUESTIONNAIRE

PURPOSE OF THIS SURVEY: one of the chief purposes of this research is to find out the

response of the general public (i.e. road users and policy makers alike) on the possible problems

and prospects of implementing road pricing in certain areas of the city of Accra so as to inform

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any policy in this direction to help remove/reduce traffic congestion to its barest minimum to

enhance efficiency in service delivery and productivity.

CONFIDENTIALITY: the researcher wishes to assure all the respondents that all the

information provided WILL be treated very confidential, and it remains purely an academic

work.

DIRECTIONS TO FILLING OUT THIS QUESTIONNAIRE: please endeavour to answer all

questions as applicable to you. Read carefully before answering any of the questions. Please tick

the most appropriate answer.

SECTION A…General Characteristics of Respondents

1) Sex: Male Female

2) Age.……….

3) Place of Residence: ………………………...Place of Work…………………….

4) What is Your Level of Education?

i. Primary/ Elementary

ii. JSS/Middle School.

iii. SSS/ ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level

iv. Post Secondary

v. University / Polytechnic

vi. None

5) Did you attend a driving school? YES NO

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6) Which type of vehicle, listed below do you drive?

i. Taxi

ii. Private Car

iii. Mini Bus/‘Tro-tro’

iv. Public Bus

v. Truck

7) Do you have a valid driving lincence? YES NO

8) Do you drive into and/ or from the Accra Central area? YES NO

9) If your answer to question 8 above is yes, which of the time ranges below do you drive

into the area in question:

i. 7:30 to 10:00am

ii. 4:30 to 5:30pm

iii. Other……………………………………………………………………………

10) Which of the following is the reason for driving there? For:

i. Passengers

ii. Shopping

iii. Freights/goods

Which other reason(s) can you give?………………………………………….

SECTION B………Private Car Owners and/or Drivers

11) Where is your place of work and/ or office located?……………………………….

12) At what time do you get to the office and/ or work place?……………………

13) Is that the time you should report at work and/ or begin work? YES NO

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14) If your answer to the previous question 13 is NO, what then would you say accounts for

the lateness?

i. Traffic congestion, usually in the mornings around 7:30 to 10:00

Yes No

15) What time do you leave your office or place of work for the house?………………

16) What reason(s) would you give in support of your answer in question 15 above?

i. ………………………………..

ii. ……………………………….

iii. ……………………………….

iv. ……………………………….

v. ………………………………

17) Why have you chosen to go to work in your own car instead of metro mass transport or

public bus?

i. Unreliability of the metro mass transport and other forms of public buses

ii. Unreliability of taxis and ‘tro-tro’

iii. Traffic congestion

iv. Other reasons………………………………………

18) Would you say that high incomes or salaries made it possible for you to own a car?

YES NO

19) What would you say your monthly salary was in the year 2000? (i) 400GHc Below (ii)

600GHc Below (iii) 800GHc Below (iv) 1000GHc Below (v) 1200GHc Below (vi)

1400GHc Below (vii) 1600GHc Below (viii) 1800GHc (ix) 2000GHc Below

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20) How many car(s) do you have?………………………..

21) How would you describe your experience driving through the heavy traffic in the

mornings and in the evenings when you close from work?

i. Very bad

ii. Moderately bad

iii. Bad

iv. Good

v. Moderately good

vi. Very good

22) Are you satisfied going to work every day in your own car? YES NO

23) Would you consider going to work using a more efficient, reliable and cost effective metro

transport or any other public transport system for that matter? YES NO

24) Do you think traffic congestion is part of the problem why you can’t reach your work place

or office in time? YES NO

25) If your answer to the previous question is YES, would you recommend any of the

following as a strategy to help remove/reduce the traffic congestion in the area?

i. Cordons (area) pricing

ii. Congestion/ or value pricing

iii. Road space rationing

iv. Vehicle Use fees

v. Others……………………………………….

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26) What would you say is likely to be the effects of road pricing on you owning a private car?

……………………… ………………………… ……………………

………………………….. ………………………… ………………………

SECTION C……….Metro Mass Transport Operators

27) Currently, do you operate in the Central Accra area? YES NO

28) If your answer to the previous question is YES or NO, please give reasons:

i. …………………………………..

ii. …………………………………

iii. ………………………………….

iv. ………………………………….

v. …………………………………

29) How many of your buses operate in that part of the city currently?………………..

30) Is traffic congestion in that part of the city a problem? YES NO

31) Would you welcome road pricing as a management strategy to help reduce/remove the

number of private cars, taxis and ‘tro-tro’ from that part of the city in the mornings and

evenings? YES NO

32) Would such a policy enable you increase the number of your buses into that area? YES

NO

33) How would you rate the current level of your operations in that part of the city?

i. Very bad

ii. Moderately bad

iii. Bad

iv. Good

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v. Moderately good

vi. Very good

34) In what way do you think road pricing would affect your service?……………………

……………………… …………………….. ……………………..

SECTION D……….Policy Makers

35) Does your outfit recognize the problem of road traffic congestion in Accra Central as a major

concern? YES NO

36) What are some of the factors does your outfit think account for this problem? ………………

………………… ……………….. ………………….. …………….

…………………………………

37) Do you think the proliferation of private cars, taxis, and tro-tro contributes to this problem?

YES NO

38. a.) What are some of the measures your outfit uses to address this problem in the past?

i)………………………………………………

ii)……………………………………………...

iii)……………………………………………..

iv)…………………………………………………….

v)……………………………………………………..

38.b.) What are some of the measures used to address the problem now?

i)………………………………………

ii)…………………………………….

iii)……………………………………

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iv)……………………………………

39) Would you encourage the use of metro mass transport instead of the private cars, taxis, and

tro-tro? YES NO

40) If your answer to Q39 is NO, what are your reasons?……………….. ………………

…………………… ……………………… ………………………………

…………………………… ………………………. ………………………………

SECTION E…….Taxi and Tro-tro Operators

41) Given that the concept of road pricing has been explained to you, would you accept it as a

license permitting you to enter the Accra Central Area? YES NO

42) If NO, give your reasons?…………………… ………………………………………

………………………… …………………………… ………………………

43) Are you then concerned with the problem of road traffic congestion in that part of the city?

YES NO

44) If you answer is YES to Q43 above, how do you think the problem could be solved given

that the existing roads could not be extended?

………………….. ……………………….. …………………………………

…………………. ………………………… ………………………………….

SECTION F……… To be Answered by All Category of Commuters

45a) What would you say are some of the prospects of implementing road pricing in the area in

question?

i. ………………………………………………………………….

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ii. ………………………………………………………………….

iii. ………………………………………………………………….

iv. ………………………………………………………………….

v. …………………………………………………………………..

45b) What would you also say are some of the problems of implementing it?

i. …………………………………………………………………..

ii. …………………………………………………………………..

iii. ………………………………………………………………….

iv. …………………………………………………………………

v. …………………………………………………………………

46) How do you think such a policy could be implemented?

i. …………………………………………………………………

ii. …………………………………………………………………

iii. …………………………………………………………………

iv. ………………………………………………………………….

v. ………………………………………………………………….

47) Would you welcome road pricing now that you understand what it means?

YES NO

48) Why?..............................................................................................................

APPENDIX D

Month Activity

August 2006 Correction of proposal

September 2006 Preliminary study of study area

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October 2006 Mapping of all study routes in the area

November 2006 Gathering of literature

December 2006 Gathering of literature

January 2007 Questionnaire administration and interviews

February 2007 Questionnaire administration and interviews

March 2007 Questionnaire administration and interviews

April 2007 Questionnaire administration and interviews

May 2007 Write-up of first draft

June 2007 Submission of first draft

July 2007 Awaiting approval

August 2007 Awaiting approval

September 2007 Awaiting approval

October 2007 Correction and inputting of comments

November 2007 Correction and inputting of comments

December 2007 Proof Reading and Editing of Completed Draft

January 2008 Submission of Completed Draft

February 2008 Awaiting Approval

March 2008 Awaiting Approval

April 2008 Correction

May 2008 Correction

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June 2008 Final Submission

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