How unmarked roads and streets create city chaos

A police officer inspects the mangled wreck of an ambulance involved in a road accident. [John Ndungu, Standard]

For Kidali Were, an ambulance driver, navigating through Nairobi’s often gridlocked roads is a nightmare.

Were, who is an Emergency Medical Tactician (EMT) with Okoa Ambulance, and has worked in the sector for close to ten years, says emergency service providers find navigating the city a daunting task.

“Often when you are transporting a patient and get into some traffic, you find people ignore the siren and refuse to make way,” he says. “This can be very frustrating when you need to get the patient to a hospital in the shortest time possible.”

The lack of a numbering system for roads and buildings in many parts of Nairobi and the surrounding urban areas increase the challenges faced by emergency service providers.

“In some parts of the city, roads and streets are well-labelled and numbered. But in other parts, such as informal settlements and new sub-urban estates like Utawala and Ruai, there is no labelling,” he says.

Speed and accuracy remain key for drivers in emergency services including, ambulances, fire engines and the police. Getting lost or arriving late to the emergency site could often mean the difference between life and death for  patients. 

Were says the Covid-19 pandemic has made the situation worse with the need for ambulance services rising significantly.

“Between October last year and April this year, we saw a spike in demand for emergency services; one ambulance was getting an average of seven to eight calls each day,” he says.

Without a standard map, drivers often resort to navigation systems like Google Maps to find roads and addresses that they are unfamiliar with.

“There is no central map of roads and streets that’s publicly available so Google Maps helps, but then it becomes challenging to drivers who have feature phones or for addresses that are not on the map,” Were says.

For the past 13 years, Kenya has tried to set up a National Addressing System (NAS) without much progress. Bureaucratic bottlenecks, lack of political goodwill and financial resources stalls the process.

Coherent system

“A simple, coherent and readily understandable addressing system is essential for the proper and timely deployment of police, fire and ambulance services and even military troop movements, particularly in emergency situations,” said the Communication Authority (CA) in its NAS policy published in 2018.

Acting Director-General, Communications Authority of Kenya Mercy Wanjau [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

“A precise and continuously updated national addressing system would ease the delivery of goods and services including mail and packages and engender cost reductions across the board - from businesses to government to civil society - through improved efficiency on account of reliability,” explains the policy.

A pilot programme conducted in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) in 2016 saw buildings and streets labelled and indexed, some of them for the first time in decades.

However, the project has stalled in recent years and several efforts to roll out a nation-wide deployment have run into roadblocks. In 2018, CA invited bids for a consultant to update and implement the National Addressing System.

Awarded tender

CA later awarded the tender to Branded Solutions Ltd that had bid the tender for Sh80.2million. However the Public Procurement Administrative Board (PPARB) quashed the tender award following a challenge by a rival bidder IMAP International Limited that had placed a Sh43.5million bid.

Former CA Director General Francis Wangusi who was at the helm of the regulator for eight years says past attempts to actualise the massive project have been scuttled by covert interests by top government honchos.

“From where I was sitting, it seemed there were people high in government who believed the project could benefit them financially,” he explained. “It is a massive undertaking that requires a big budget and there were people in government who wanted to know what was in it for them.”   

According to Wangusi, this, coupled with lethargy in government has pushed the project in the back burner each year it comes up.

In February this year, CA acting Director General Mercy Wanjau said the authority had started the process again, with the first step being to search for an independent consultant to advice on deployment of the Sh2 billion project.

“CA was given the mandate to roll out the NAS and we are in advanced stages of identifying a consultant who will develop the roll-out plan within the draft policy we have,” she said.