Innovative ways and means of tackling Road Traffic Accident (RTC) has been put in place over the recent years. Among these are smart parking structures that have taken shape in the capital, Addis Ababa.
As the number of vehicles entering the city’s road traffic is on the rise, roadsides were used for parking as well that contributed to road traffic accidents. But this could not be taken as the single most important contributor to RTC.
For example, according to a research conducted in 2017, Ethiopia has a high RTC in the world. Among these, over 60 percent occurred in Addis Ababa. The analysis of the road RTC between the years 2010 and 2014 showed that 14,263 persons sustained different levels of injuries in which 1,911 were fatal whereas the rest were serious and minor injuries.
Majority or 79 percent of the fatal and serious or 76 percent injuries were males, and pedestrians were 87 percent. Most of these crashes were due to the drivers’ not yielding right of way to pedestrians and wrong parkings.
Besides this, an estimated 19 million US dollars cost of property was damaged due to the drivers recklessness. Generally, among other risk factors road conditions and road congestion are mentionable.
Likewise, recently the number of vehicles in Ethiopia is increasing from time to time as in many other nations of the world. This has also been one of the reasons of various traffic accidents those happened throughout the nation including road narrowness, shortage of parking areas and low irresponsiveness to traffic rules.
To tackle problems related to parking, Addis Ababa City Administration has prepared some smart parking structures on the street and off the street by organizing unemployed youngsters and women though the customers are not receiving legal receipts for what they pay.
That has reduced the customer flow to the legal innovative parking areas whatever service they provided. In such parkings, services are fast; they are the safest; and vehicles are well protected from human touch, rain and sun.
Megenagna Special Parking Service Association Deputy Manager, Zelalem Asefa, said that the association started the modern service before two years.“When we started, there were 26 members although we are only18 because of low income.”
He mentioned the spread of illegal parking on the streets as a reason for this low income. Traffic police should cooperate in avoiding the illegal parking on the streets as it is its responsibility.
As well, it has the capacity to hold more than 140 cars in its two separate standards. The smart one can hold 90 cars while the open space holds 50 cars. “Previously, we served 135 cars per hour though now only an average of 50 customers,” he noted.
According to him, shortage of electricity has cost the organization a lot to operate generator to move the cars up and down on the smart park. The illegal street parking and the society’s lack of awareness on the smart parking system has also influenced the implementation and profitability of the park.
Customers prefer less price; therefore, most customers do not want to park their cars in the costly parking area.
Abebe Desta, customer of the parking service on his part, said that the service is the safest for our car, “Most of the parking areas on the street are just receiving money without proper protection to the properties. The government has to boost parking area is the main problem for car owners, government have think over on building this kind of parking area in another part of the city.
Higher professional of Parking Infrastructural at Addis Ababa Road Traffic Management Agency, Solomon Kebede, told to The Ethiopian Herald that the main aim of the Agency to build up those two parking area – in Megenagna and Merkato (Anwar Mesjid) is to make proper trafficking system, creating employmentand to control and solve the problem of parking problem.
This smart parking technology minimize the space of the car use as comparing to open space, and affiliates and owner of hotels and supermarket can use it on their small space, we are on the way to use Public Private Partnership to working with affiliates by giving spaces to build up smart parking by themselves.
There is a rule and regulation to administer for both on street and off the street, previously 50% income is to the Agency and 50% to the association but now re-justify rule and regulation separating 35% for the agency and 65% for the association.
According to him, The Agency face a problem of bureaucracy of receiving land, illegal on street parking users specially Merkato’sparking, he transfer a message to the traffic police, CEO of the sub cities and Woreda’s Road trafficking to structure this kind of mess.
We advert the smart parking on Media and prepared traffic signs but car owners are not respect those signs and they are not willing to use the smart one.
This kind of parking area is helpful for the transportation system, beauty of the city, free from breaking in, and trafficking problem.
The Ethiopian Herald June 21/2019
BY BETHLEHEM ASFAW
