Traffic Management During Events

 

 

Issues with Traffic Management during events

 

Vehicular movement and parking arrangement during occasions are some aspects of event management which may create a lot challenges for managers, servicing vendors, participants and attendees if it is overlooked.

The Event venues, centres, places or locations are reputed to be the major causes of traffic build-up and gridlock around their vicinity. Traditionally in Nigeria, we have the practice of using public roads, open spaces or people’s homes as event centres. When this happens, a section of the road may be blocked thereby hindering traffic flow. This habit has been the order of the day and event owners and managers sometimes and not always may obtain necessary government permit to close a section of a road for an event.  Although government at different levels especially the local councils see this as a way of generating revenue, however they do not put all the necessary arrangement in place to alleviate the suffering that the other road users will encounter during these events. Neither does the event owners and managers make adequate arrangement too. The resultant effects becomes the inconvenience of other tax payers and road users. This is a very key consideration for event managers and must be factored into the planning of the occasion.

The trend of hosting events along the roads, people’s homes or open places, seems to be fast receding with the springing up of ultramodern event centres everywhere. Despite that the traffic jams that are associated with it still lingers on, in some instances.  This is so because the building of these event centres is not regulated. As such proper planning is not put in place to take care of adequate parking spaces for cars, vehicular and pedestrian movement within and around the vicinity. Hence, the trend of event attendees and service vendors parking cars and trucks indiscriminately on the streets, obstructing free flow of movement and the consequent chaotic traffic situation continues unabated.

For event managers therefore, this is an area which tasks their organizational competence so much. The manager has to provide transportation Logistics and convenience for attendees and servicing vendors. Overlooking this assistance may throw a spanner into the manager’s wheel of works. Most often, it is important to have a check list of things that must be done in this area. The list may include but not limited to

  i.            Hiring traffic police, State Traffic Management Authority, Man O ’War, or any other approved paramilitary outfit or security agency to help in the control of traffic.

ii.            Map out a designated parking area with slot markings.

iii.            Provides proper and visible directional signs and road markings

iv.            Deciding on the parking style (straight, reverse or forward) to ensure that attendees can drive in and out in freely.

 v.            Reviewing and discussing the parking arrangement with the traffic controllers and the other contractors.

vi.            Getting the necessary permit from the appropriate authorities.

vii.            Dignitaries may need to be dropped by their drivers on the red carpet, how this will be controlled must be preplanned.

viii.            Physically challenged attendees will need special handling and must be pre-arranged.

ix.            Flight arrangements including airport pick up and drop off must be made if needed.

 x.            Include traffic arrangement, road mapping and directions as part of the invitation packaging.

 

On the part of the government agencies that supervise traffic control and generate revenue through the issuing of permits for the use of public facility for the hosting of an event, there are also some responsibilities too. This may include but not limited to the following

1.      Ensuring that the Event manager is a certified professional properly registered with Association of Professional Party Organizers and Event Managers of Nigeria (APPOEMN) or any other recognised professional body

2.      Providing proper receipts, permits and clearance to enable event service vehicles and trucks to move freely without hindrance and harassment from public officials.

3.      Working with the event managers to map out alternative routes for other road users and parking arrangement in places where the hosting of an event might create traffic issues.

4.      Participate in the planning and building of event places to integrate vehicular control, parking and pedestrian movement as part of the environmental design.

5.      Monitor the traffic situation before, during and after an event to ensure compliance to plan.

6.      Intervene immediately with plan B if things are not working accordingly.

 

I am confident that if these tips are applied by every stakeholder during the event planning and execution, we will come out with better experience for attendees and general public.