Urban Transport in the OIC Megacities
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road safety in 1998. Although this situation has improved since then, especially with the participation
in the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, public spending of developing countries on
road safety remain remarkably low compared to those of the developed ones (Bishai et al, 2003;
Institute of Road Traffic Education, 2009).
More specifically most developing countries have yet to adopt a National Road Safety Plan. This is
often accompanied by inadequate accident data collection procedures and poor post-crash
management. The lack of information on the current road safety status, causes and consequences at a
country and city level further hinders the development of targets and plans for further action. In
addition, the roles and responsibilities for traffic management agencies and the police are often not
clearly defined. Traffic legislation is also not updated regularly, not covering the needs of NMT and
does not follow modern common practices such as common examination standards for obtaining
driving licences. This leads to poor law enforcement on the side of the police and reckless driving.
Finally, the condition of the vehicles is also contributing to the accident rates, while at the same time
poor technical control facilities and regulations do not encourage any change.
Evidence from India shows that road traffic fatalities have been increasing at about 8% annually for
the last ten years and show no signs of decreasing. Accidents involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and
other non motorizts in urban areas account for about 60% of all fatalities in urban areas, substantially
more than in most high income countries. Motorcyclists represent a large portion of urban fatalities
(about 25%). However, a partial shift of motorcyclists to small cars due to income increase is also
concerning the Indian authorities, because although small cars provide more protection to the
occupants, they are expected to be more harmful thanmotorcycles to pedestrians, bicyclists, and other
motorcyclists unless vehicle fronts are designed to be more forgiving. In addition, the involvement of
trucks and buses in fatal crashes is all the more frequent. Several studies indicate that the involvement
of trucks in fatal crashes is greater than would be expected based only on their exposure (Mohan et al,
2009).
Other reasons contributing to road accidents in India are related to night time driving. The lack of
concentration and control of road users who are driving under the influence of alcohol, the low
visibility and fatigue of truck drivers have a significant contribution to road fatalities. Finally, a large
proportion of fatalities on divided highways are from head on collisions caused by drivers driving on
the opposite direction. One study found that such crashes accounted for 19% of all fatalities on four
lane, divided highways (Mohan et al, 2009).
3.7. Institutions and Organizational structure
3.7.1. Introduction
Urban transport governance remains a challenging area for both developed and developing world
cities. The development and implementation of transport policies requires a combination of
institutional structures and synergies to be in place in order to succeed. The concentration of all
operations and planning under a single transport authority for a city is considered a key action to
ensure the delivery of a sustainable transport strategy. This transport authority needs to be able to
develop a transport strategy for a city, ensure that the necessary synergies with other sectors and
authorities are in place, monitor the implementation of the plan, evaluate its success and adapt it
according to the changing needs of the city. In addition, the participation of all relevant stakeholders,
such as the public, private operators and local authorities, needs to be secured in order to deliver equal
access opportunities, service levels and economic benefits.
3.7.2. Institutions and organizational structure in developed world megacities
In most developed world megacities, the city wide transport authorities have been in place for years
and have developed their structure so that they manage most operations in the city and interactions
with other authorities such as land use planning and environment. However, in many cases, there is
still no framework in place to determine the responsibilities and role of private operators, particularly