Transportation Demand Management (TDM) for Solving Traffic Congestion in Addis Ababa (A Case study of Flextime)

Traffic congestion is one of the main problems in the urban transportation of Addis Ababa. Solving this problem by constructing additional infrastructure is impossible for Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, due to obviously financial constraint. In addition to this, as proved in the developed world, constructing more infrastructures for the increase in demand might solve the traffic congestion problem for a short term. This in turn invites additional demand to be born which eats away the increased infrastructure. Considering all, it is required to introduce a new approach called Transportation Demand Management (TDM) for solving the traffic congestion that many roads in Addis Ababa are facing.

Among the various TDM strategies, Flextime, which deals with staggering of work schedule of commuters to work and school, is studied in this research. Flextime has been tried in Hiroshima and was found to be successful in reducing the peak hour traffic volume. Flextime only requires the participation of companies in the program so that they allow partial or full change in the working schedule. Since its effect in general is to decrease the total traffic volume, the change in the level of services of the major intersections of Addis Ababa was analyzed and significant improvements in the level of services of these intersections in Addis Ababa were found. With proper coordination of concerned companies, it would be recommended that Flextime would be successful if tried in Addis Ababa.