Using the Learning Launch to Tackle the Traffic Congestion Challenge in Nairobi

Challenge

Traffic congestion is one of the key challenges affecting the City of Nairobi and many other  cities in the world. In Nairobi, it can be said to be brought about by; underinvestment in road  extensive road networks, poor condition of existing roads, insufficient capital investment in  public transport, suboptimal terminus locations, and reckless/insubordinate drivers. These  problems, among others create a traffic congestion problem in the major roads within the city  leading to the loss of valuable human resource hours.

Selection

The Learning Launch is a tool that allows us to try out a proposed solution on a small scale  so as to gather valuable intel from the actual market on the probability of the solution being  successful. The method helps us to see how our “good ideas” perform outside of ourselves  and can provide invaluable data to help us decide whether to continue or pivot. This tool  would be the most ideal for this situation because of the complexity of the problem, the  number of variables involved and the high capital investment that would be required to fully  implement such an idea.

Application

The nature of this project means that a great deal of stakeholders were involved in the  operationalization of the launching curve which was referred to as the pilot. Although pilot  studies are traditionally different from learning launches in that a lot more information is  collected, assessed and scenario building done, this pilot was akin to a learning launch in that  it was politically motivated and therefore skipped many of the steps that would be deemed  necessary before implementing a pilot. The launch saw the end of trip termini in the city  central business district (CBD)moved to beyond the central business district boundaries.

Approach

Unfortunately, the Learning Launch in this case did not have a formal feedback chain and  relied on social media and mass media review of the initiative. The reception for the  innovation was extremely poor with people highly dissatisfied with the fact that they had to  walk longer than before. Additionally, despite the ban of the public means of transport within  the CBD, the traffic jam within the CBD did not reduce, if anything, it seemed to increase.  This showed that the problem of traffic congestion could not be solved by simply focusing on  termini within the CBD. While I did not directly participate in this Learning Launch, I did  follow it very keenly because as a graduate Urban planner, city transportation is one of my  areas of interest. It is from this that I would suggest the use of the visualization tool. This  allows the city to effectively define the problem and engage with people to understand the  holes that led to traffic congestion cannot be simple solved by restricting the access of public  vehicles into the city. Using journey mapping, we are able to uncover the opportunities in  traffic congestion easing for the public transport companies as well instead of treating them  like the menace.

