By Clement Muma Matengu –

With varying description, qualification and needs for a place to gain the status of a city, infrastructure is a key component which can not be left hanging if one was to point out what a city is.
The road network is another part of a city which can be referred to as the intestines of the city for it plays a vital role in the movement of goods and services necessary to the functioning of the city.
Slight injure to the transportation infrastructure would reduce on the efficiency in delivery of goods and services too.
Lusaka is not the only city facing the challenge of high traffic congestion, but is among other many cities in both developing and developed countries that are facing a lot of chaos.
Transportation planners or Urban and Regional Planners in developing countries face a number of problems that call for innovative solutions.
High population increase together with pollution have seriously compromised existing transportation systems and significantly increased the challenge of creating future transportation systems.
Despite extensive spending on urban transportation systems, the problem seem to only get worse in most of the developing countries.
The complex urban transportation problems in developing countries are as a result of certain trends, all of them interrelated.
Urban population is one such trend as earlier mentioned.
For example, in 1995, approximately 45 percent of the world population lived in urban areas; by the year 2025, this figure is projected to go up to 60 percent in the developed countries, on the other hand 90 per cent of this increase will occur in the world’s developing countries, primarily in Africa and Asia.
Growth in population naturally causes growth in car ownership, and while car ownership levels in the developing countries are far lower than the developed countries at present, it is in the developing countries that the greatest growth rate[s] in motor vehicles have been seen in the past few years and are expected in the future, primarily in urban areas.
In Asia, most of this growth stems from the increase in vehicle with two or three wheels. China and India are among the countries expected to attain this growth.
The mobility and affordability advantages of these vehicles are diminished by their pollution disadvantage, notably high levelsof carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emission.
An increase in public transit system seldom accompanies this growth in population, mainly because of high capital costs and urban form.
A city’s form greatly influences and is influenced by travel patterns, in so saying, the development of urban form has been one of the root causes of many transportation problems throughout the world.
The rapid, unplanned, and uncoordinated growth of cities has dispersed their population as this is the case with Lusaka, resulting into more people moving from the city centers to the urban periphery.
This dispersion reduces access to public transportation and makes the cost of building and maintaining new public transportation system prohibitive.
Overall, non-motorized modes of transportation even in urban areas of developing countries can only remain viable options if there is a suitably high population density and mixed land use development pattern.
The environmental and social impacts of these trends are significant due to the fact that they are directly related to quality of life and urban productivity.
These impacts include congestion, air pollution, and traffic crashes.
Congestion is perhaps the most visible manifestation of the failures in urban transportation planning and its costs are significant.
In general, motorised urban traffic and pedestrian accidents form a higher proportional of accidents in developing countries than in developed countries.
Using statistics, in 1993, an estimated 885000 people died in traffic accidents, and the majority of these were in developing countries
In addition to the huge amounts of energy transportation consumes, motor vehicles produce more air pollution than any other human activity.
In city centers, where traffic congestion, traffic can be responsible for as much as 90 to 95 percent of the ambient carbon monoxide levels, 80 to 90 percent of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, and a large portion of the particulates, posing a major threat to human health and natural resources.
Lead emissions from the combustion of leaded gasoline also cause an estimated 80 to 90 percent of lead in ambient air.
In response to health threat posed by lead, most developed countries have reduced the lead content in gasoline, but in most developing countries, ambient; lead levels greatly exceed the health standards.
These emissions have a global as well as local impact. The transportation sector is the most rapidly growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, that is, the emissions of the chemicals that have the potential to contribute to global warming.
Urban areas in developing countries require new approaches to addressing transportation problems.
There is need to make approaches specifically for the city, solutions designed for cities of developed countries cannot directly be applied to the urban areas of developing countries.
However, developing countries can and should learn mistakes already made in developed countries like the United States where unbalanced transportation systems are exacting enormous costs.
As developing countries, we should acknowledge the interrelationships that exist between different urban trends and impacts.
Addressing problems in isolation would not be very effective because of the complex and whole nature of the urban transportation system. Interrelated problems require interrelated strategies, implemented over time, from the immediate and short term to the gradual and long term.
In conclusion, the look at three policy strands. The first, known as ‘Best Practice,” which is using “the best techniques that have been tried and shown to be effective.” Such techniques include using cleaner fuels, retrofitting engines, improving existing public transportation, coordinating interdepartmental efforts, and enforcing stricter traffic rules.
The second strand is Policy Innovations which includes managing traffic and travel demands, forming public-private partnerships, and using traffic calming and alternative fuels.
The third way is adopting the Sustainable Development strand which involves promoting non-motorised modes of transportation, integrating land use and transportation planning, expedient public transit, inspecting and maintaining vehicles, increasing education levels, and controlling urban growth.
Each city would need to develop its own version of these policy strands.
Overall, a coordinated effort with plenty of communication between the different governmental departments and stakeholders could go a long way in addressing the challenges that large cities in developing countries are experiencing.
(The Author is a fourth year student at the Copperbelt University, School of the Built Environment, department of Urban and Regional Planning and The President for Zambia Institute of Planners Students Chapter).