The Management of the Greater Accra Passenger Transport Executive (GAPTE) has raised concerns over the absence of dedicated lanes for its Aayalolo buses, saying the situation is significantly increasing the cost and time involved in operating the public transport service across Accra.
According to GAPTE, the Aayalolo bus system was designed to provide an efficient and reliable mass transportation option for commuters, but persistent traffic congestion is undermining its ability to achieve that objective.
The organisation says one of its major challenges is the amount of time buses spend in traffic while travelling along routes that could otherwise be completed within a much shorter period if dedicated lanes were available.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, September 9, Head of Transport Planning at GAPTE, Alex Johnson, described the lack of dedicated lanes as the organisation’s major constraint.
He explained that journeys that should take about 25 to 30 minutes can instead take more than 90 minutes because Aayalolo buses have to operate within the same congested road space as other vehicles.
“The lack of dedicated lanes is our major constraint. You have a corridor that you could be making within 25 minutes and a maximum of 30 minutes if we had dedicated lanes but we end up spending over one and a half hours on these same routes.
“Without having dedicated lanes for a BRT system, it makes operating city buses very expensive because they [the buses] have an optimal level of speed that should be attributed to running the corridor within a certain standard of time and so if we have dedicated lanes, you can plan and make sure that you are arriving at a bus stop every 5 minutes or 10 minutes.”
Credit: Citi Newsroom