The County Government of Nairobi and IBM are still on course to utilise technology to ease the perennial traffic jams witnessed every day in Kenya's capital.
"IBM has a concept of smart cities. We are bringing that concept, technology and research to Kenya. And we are looking with our IBM research lab and the County government of Nairobi on ways you can use technology, data and analytics to improve the traffic," Nicholas Nesbitt the General Manager of IBM East Africa told journalists, during the signing of the Bidco Africa partnership.
Nesbitt said that with technology and research, the country government will pinpoint issues that promote congestion in the city centre.
This would mean, "Understanding which roads should be widened, which T-Junctions should be changed, where you should eliminate roundabouts, where you should insert new roads and where you should connect one road to another. [Also] understand how we can move the average speed of traffic from where it is today," Nesbitt said.
In 2012, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) listed Nairobi as one of the top 10 cities with "monster" traffic joining the league of Jakarta in Indonesia, Manila in the Philippines and Austin, Texas in the United States.
The national government estimates that the country loses over US$500,000 daily due to traffic snarl ups. And this has pushed up the cost of doing business and also the high public transport fares witnessed.
Nesbitt said that the company will use their experience in other cities around the world to implement a customised solution for the Nairobi situation and help improve the traffic.
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