Exploring Light Rail Transit In Lusaka City To Curb Congestion

Public transportation problems in Lusaka can be traced back to colonial times which dictate the manner in which the city was born.The problem has persisted because the country has not departed from the colonial pattern of planning which was meant to serve a small European settlers community.Management of post-colonial transport has put a deaf ear and not emphasized on the importance/benefit of mass modes of transport.Since independence,Zambia has experienced political and economic changes but no major transformation has been made on the transportation system.Political changes came with liberalization of the road transport sector which has given birth to an increase in the number of vehicles against a limited growth of the road infrastructure.Lusaka is one of African‘s most highly urbanized Cities with more than 2.2 million people.This urbanization has created strain on the services of the city including on transportation infrastructure.This study focused on the evaluation of the potential of implementing a mass transit system specifically a LRT system in a congested city of Lusaka.The conventional four step model was implored in GIS extension software ?Transcad? to determine the future travel pattern and transportation demand for the City.Transport demand model was developed using multiple regression analysis in R.The study has clearly shown that trips are concentrated along business and work centers and that most of them(trips)are Home based.It was also clearly shown that the 2030 projected traffic demand of the city at peak hour is by far greater than most of the road capacities with the calculated biggest traffic demand of 28774 PPHPD as one is approaching Kafue round about along Kafue road.This traffic volume is suitable for LRT system whose range is between 20000 to 40000 passengers per hour.Congestion has negative impacts to our country‘s economy which can be addressed not only by directly expanding or increasing road infrastructure,but also indirectly,by diverting passengers to other statistically safer,faster and environmentally friendly means,such as rail transport.The finding of the study was that LRT is a suitable and feasible transportation alternative in Lusaka City though it has huge investment costs.This was justified by the Cost Benefit Analysis which yielded a C/B ratio of 1.3 for the operation project period of 30 years.The study is therefore a contribution to the transportation sector,but may also help the relevant authorities to realize workable and environmentally green solutions which will in the end add value to Zambia‘s economy and the beauty of the City.