Badi's NMS to build traffic control centre at City Cabanas

 

The Nairobi Metropolitan Service will build a traffic control centre at City Cabanas to ease congestion on key Nairobi roads. 

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday last week directed the NMS led by Major General Mohammed Badi to set up 100 new road junctions and build a new traffic management centre.

“The control centre will utilise traffic cameras and censors and harmonise location data to provide a synchronised signal at 100 new junctions in addition to the existing traffic lights,” the President said.

City Cabanas is located at the junction where the Nairobi – Mombasa highway meets Airport North Road.

NMS will also redesign and signalise 25 new intersections.

Uhuru said NMS together with Kenya Urban Roads Authority and Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Namata) were working to enhance traffic management through the rehabilitation and re-introduction of synchronised traffic lights across the city.

With Nairobi in the process of implementing the Bus Rapid Transit plan, the new traffic signal junctions will support the BRT.

In November last year, Huawei in partnership with Kura implemented the pilot of the Intelligence Traffic System (ITS) that saw the use of intelligent surveillance cameras, traffic flow cameras and variable timing traffic lights to ease vehicle movement.

So far the system has been implemented in seven major junctions from Yaya Center along Kilimani and Kileleshwa Ring Roads to Riverside.

“I'm happy that the pilot has matched our expectations in terms of cost-benefit analysis. And therefore now we have the confidence to go to the next level,” Transport CS James Macharia said.

Nairobi traffic boss Joshua Omukata said the ITS will bring order on the roads.

To expand the system, Kura acting director Daniel Muchiri said the new junctions will improve traffic.

The ITS project was first announced in December 2017 by Kura at a cost of Sh1.4 billion inclusive of a traffic control centre.

The project was part of the Nairobi Urban Transport Improvement Programme funded by the World Bank and the state.

Kura was collaborating with WYG, German consultancies, Gauff Consultants and Schlothauer & Wauer GmbH in designing 100 various junctions.

The first phase of the ITS project included the installation of modern traffic signalisation systems, such as cameras in 100 major junctions, for Sh340 million.

Cameras at road junctions were expected to capture oncoming traffic through digital number plates embedded with microchips, then feed the information into the Traffic Control Centre.

Speeding will easily be detected and the details of the car captured. Motorists flouting the traffic rules will also be captured.