A Review of Traffic Congestion in Dar es Salaam City from the Physical Planning Perspective

Kiunsi, Robert B. · 2013 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.5539/jsd.v6n2p94

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Summary

This review paper examines the escalating traffic congestion in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, arguing that current mitigation strategies are insufficient because they neglect physical planning. The study identifies congestion as a critical issue driven by rapid population growth, a mono-centric city structure, inadequate road infrastructure, and a surge in private vehicle ownership. While the city has implemented supply-side measures, such as expanding road capacity and improving traffic management, and demand-side measures, such as enhancing public transport, these efforts have failed to resolve the problem. The author contends that without integrating physical planning to redistribute services and influence land use, congestion will persist as vehicle growth outpaces infrastructure development. The methodology relies on a literature review of existing studies, reports, and conceptual frameworks, including data from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Tanzania Revenue Authority. The analysis critically evaluates the implementation of the 1979 Dar es Salaam Master Plan, which proposed a hierarchical city structure with distributed services to reduce travel to the Central Business District (CBD). The paper assesses current congestion levels, contributing factors, and ongoing decongestion efforts, highlighting the gap between planned physical strategies and actual urban development. Key findings reveal severe congestion during peak hours, with traffic speeds dropping to 0–10 km/h in the city center and 20–30 km/h on major arterial roads. The congestion results in estimated monetary losses of Tshs 655 billion annually for private and commercial vehicles and contributes significantly to air pollution, with pollutant levels exceeding World Health Organization standards. The primary drivers include a population that grew from 0.85 million in 1978 to 4 million in 2007, a mono-centric structure that funnels traffic toward the CBD, and a vehicle fleet that increased from 24,600 in 1979 to over 600,000 by 2011. The study notes that the 1979 master plan’s strategy of distributing facilities across ten-cell units and districts was largely unimplemented, leading to a reliance on the CBD for services and exacerbating traffic loads. The paper concludes that traffic congestion in Dar es Salaam cannot be solved by infrastructure expansion alone, as the rate of car and population growth exceeds the capacity for road construction. It emphasizes that physical planning is essential to minimize trip generation and redistribute traffic volumes. The author advocates for the implementation of the new master plan’s proposal to develop satellite towns, which would decentralize services and reduce the pressure on the CBD. The significance of this work lies in its call for an integrated approach that combines road capacity improvements and public transport enhancements with rigorous physical planning and development control to achieve sustainable urban mobility.

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• traffic density