Traffic Jams in Dar es Salaam city: Blowing away benefits of agglomeration

Traffic Jams in Dar es Salaam city: Blowing away benefits of agglomeration

By Elly Chuma

Dar es Salaam, the nucleus of Tanzanian economy, is the fastest growing city in East Africa. Prospect of good life beckons and attracts all classes and types of people in Tanzania; at the same time becomes the famous for traffic jams which are eating up the benefits of agglomeration economies.

Like other cities Dar es Salaam agglomeration is not an accident episode, since the city located on a natural harbour on the Indian Ocean which serves almost 90 percent of all imports. This harbour is the heart of the Tanzanian transportation system as all of the country's main railways Tanzania and Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) and Tanzania Railways Limited (TRL), and several highways originate in the city. Presence of more than 15 universities, good hospitals, schools has attracted many firms to locate their businesses in the city and workers to find jobs. Firms and workers locate in Dar es Salaam because this city offers a bunch of benefit, varying from product varieties, availability of workers, jobs, and so many amenities which are very difficult to get at low prices in other cities.

The city is the main engine of economic growth and serves as a major administrative, commercial, and industrial centre in Tanzania compared to other 29 regions. It is really surprising that this city contributes of 80 percent of the total GDP and home of one half of total manufacturing employees of the country. Dar es Salaam has invariably been an attractive, persuading centripetal centre, making its population one among of the most fast-growing in Africa. The city population has been double in last decades from 2.5 million in 2002 to approximately 5 million in 2012. The rural-urban migration into Dar es Salaam has involved different groups of people but young people are dominating. This group is looking for employment, with neither capital nor skills to undertake gainful business.

Transport problem in Dar es Salaam is a recent disease. Thanks to the government who did not make significant initiative to build new roads or rehabilitation of the existing ones. The fact that this city does not have rapid mass system, small buses do not offer enough services, consequently ownership of private cheap used cars especially from Japan has been increasing geometrically in Dar es Salaam and cause traffic jams more problematic

In past, commuters were able to move 30 kms only for 20 minutes which is quite difficult these days, now it takes more than 2 to 3 hours in the pick time. Minister of Works in 2011 lamented, "Dar es Salaam contributes nearly 80% of the national income, at the same time people are wasting a lot of time in the traffic jams. The latest study shows the jams cost the economy more than 4 billion Tanzanian shillings a day (equivalent to US dollar 2.5 million)."

“Do you want to be on time in your office”? Here is the deal; you have to wake up at 4:00 am to prepare yourself and make sure you get to the road around 5:00 am so that you can avoid traffic jams in the morning. Working hours starts from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm, but you have to wait until 8.00 pm when majority of people in the city center have already left. This is the innovative way used by some people to avoid using too much oil in the traffic jam.

Traffic jam in Dar es Salaam has influenced the location of the firms significantly. Traffic jam has increased cost of production for firms, and workers also are using a lot of time to commune and use a lot of oil in the queue. Some big companies like Heritage Insurance Company Limited, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority, and large cellular network companies (Airtel Tanzania Limited, Vodaphone Tanzania Limited), and Stanbic Bank Tanzania Limited have relocated to the periphery of the commercial capital to escape overhead costs caused by traffic jams, parking fees and other related problems.

It has been estimated by the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI) that traffic jams costs up to 20 per cent of annual profits losses of most businesses in the city. Those companies that deal with the supply of fast moving consumer goods such as beverages, edible oil, bread and soap are the most affected since it is very hard to make timely deliveries of their products to customers.

Furthermore, traffic jam contributes to the increase level of crimes. Thieves used to walk along the cars’ queues and steal citizens’ belongs like handsets, jewelries. Also impatient drivers particularly dala dala drivers (famous public transport buses) in usually violate regulations cause killings of pedestrians. Traffic jam has led to significantly increase use of motorcycle (famous name boda boda) which has boomed the numbers of accidents in Tanzania killing hundreds of people.

The future of Dar es Salaam city is still uncertain, regardless of current attempt of government to curb this problem. Introducing train transport and a new plan to replace small buses with a government-managed rapid mass transit system are difficult to assess yet.

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Polycentric Moscow: overcoming transport collapse

Polycentric Moscow: overcoming transport collapse

By Anna Bakaykina

Modern Moscow is a classical representation of monocentric city. Approximately 70 % of all workplaces are concentrated in the area of ​​6.5 km from the Kremlin, whereas people mostly live in the suburbs (e.g., the population density of the Zyabliko district, located 17 km away from the city center, is 2.2 times larger than density in Arbat district located 1 km from the Kremlin. This can be explained by the bid-rent theory - moving away from the city center the prices for accommodation significantly decrease. So, a one-room apartment rent in Khimki is almost half that of one in the North-Western Administrative Districtof Moscow ($581.8 versus $1043.37, respectively,

However, this monocentric structure directly causes the severe transportation problem. Everyday a huge flow of Muscovites travels from their homes to the workplaces and the other way round (so-called “pendulum migration”). Along with the underdeveloped transport infrastructure (leading to one of the worst estimated commuting time in the world) and existing radial transportation system, it creates huge traffic jams and metro overload. Thus, every day the capital metro is overloaded by 20 % on average and typical traffic jam lasts 2.5 hours daily (Moscow is 8th in the world in terms of traffic jam duration). The current situation can be characterized as transport collapse.

Several separate steps can be implemented to cope with this problem, but they will unlikely have any real significant effect. Thus complex solution is needed. The concept of policentricity – the formation of several clusters of economic activity within one city – seems to be an effective solution for the Moscow case. Such capitals as Paris, London, Tokyo chose a similar path of development several decades ago by creating new poles of jobs concentration and relieving the historic center. Modern theory in this case is perfectly consistent with the existing practice*.

Permeated with the spirit of the polycentricity and the prospect of becoming a world financial center, the Russian government decided to create the Moscow metropolitan area (“Big Moscow”). This project provides for an expanding more than two-fold in area of the capital (from 1,070 squarekilometers to 2,560 sq km) with the establishment of multiple clusters (including medical, innovative and educational clusters) and relocation of several Federal authorities (e.g. Parliament and Supreme Court) to new greenfield sites. It also suggests the creation of an efficient transport infrastructure, in particular, development of chordwise directions, and putting into operation a total of 23 new metro stations by 2018. Special emphasis will be placed on an improvement of existing public transport system by an introduction of intelligent transport systems, creation of wide range of transport hubs, opening of passenger traffic in the small ring of the Moscow railway and integrating it with the functioning of underground.

Nevertheless, real economic effects from this project remain unclear. In short-term period, it is quite unlikely that there will be any real effect, because a simple change in administrative status of attached territories will not add more incentives to firms to reallocate. And terrain characteristics stay the same: there are still transport problems, and the population density is still low (compared to the "Old Moscow" and other areas of the Moscow region). Concerning pendulum migration, the flows will not change until real improvements in transport infrastructure and the development of chordwise directions.  The only thing that might change the situation in the short-term is the decision to relocate public institutions, but this effect is not likely to be significant because it can only accelerate the creation of infrastructure and this also will take time. Otherwise, the level of wages will stay the same because it depends on the demand and supply on local labor market. As income of people will not change, the level of local prices will not be also affected by this process.

Considering the long-term prospect, changes might occur but they mostly depend on the development of the full range of infrastructure, including social infrastructure (which besides transport includes health, education, housing). Only in this case an overflow of the economic activity from the "Old Moscow" and other areas of the Moscow region will be observed. However, the development of the “Big Moscow” – 90 % of which is currently covered by forests, fields and villages  – will take time and will need to solve some existing issues. For example, it is impossible to create accommodation with the current absence of the proper water supply, for which two solutions have been proposed – to drill wells or to build a reservoir near Podolsk.  But the first will raise the level of prices on accommodation to premium class level (and will be provided mostly by private companies), which of course will not provide additional incentive for people to move there, whereas the second needs direct involvement of the authorities and huge state investments.

Despite the fact that the project itself looks very convincing in solving the existing problem of transport collapse, it is quite unlikely to expect real effect of it in the nearest future. Moreover, any real success can appear only in case of using integrated approach.

* The classical monocentric Von Thünen (1826) model extended later by Alonso (1964), Mills (1967), Muth (1969) and Fujita (1989) lost its position in comparison with emerging polycentric models (e.g. Anas and Kim, 1986), which are able to describe more complex patterns through interaction of agglomeration and dispersion. 

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