In the Caribbean, the car is king, and though COVID-19 has taken many vehicles off our roads, congestion is the norm. This is just one of the major challenges we face as a region that was discussed at the Transportation Symposium 2021, a virtual event hosted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Engineering.
In Trinidad and Tobago, it was revealed that, for our population of approximately 1.4 million, there are 120.2 vehicles per kilometre of paved road, and 714 vehicles per 1,000 persons. In most cities, the capacity of the transportation system is ill-equipped to deal with the growing mobility needs of the population, and so, in the absence of a robust public transportation system, individuals purchase vehicles to satisfy those needs.
“Our policies [in the Caribbean] support a car in every garage, and yet we complain about congestion,” said Mrs Cheryl Bennett-Inniss, Chief Technical Officer at the Ministry of Transport, Works and Water Resources in Barbados, one of the presenters at the three-day symposium.
Mrs Bennett-Inniss told the online audience that Caribbean countries have the responsibility of moving away from the sedan as our primary mode of transportation.
Transportation Symposium 2021, which ran from May 17 to 19, was created to bring together like-minded professionals interested in spurring a transportation revolution across the Caribbean. Specialists in road safety, architecture, sustainable energy, civil engineering and, of course, transportation produced solutions for some of our most pressing travel challenges with the intention of packaging and making them available to policymakers and influencers.
“The need to identify new capabilities (instead of capacity) of transport infrastructure in order to increase efficiency and capacity without extending the existing infrastructure [is pressing],” said Professor Maria Attard, Head of Geography and the Director of the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development at the University of Malta.
Professor Attard, who spoke on the “Role of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in Future Mobility”, gave the definition of ITS as “a wide array of information and communication technologies” to improve transportation systems. They can make these systems “safer, more efficient, and more sustainable”. She gave examples of ITS applications in traffic management, public information, and enforcement.
Professor Attard also shared instances of ITS solutions applied in Valletta, the capital of Malta. As an island state like those of the Caribbean, Malta’s transportation challenges and ITS solutions can be valuable in solving our own, she explained.
Presenters on day one included Mrs Bennett-Inniss and Professor Attard; Professor Mark Raymond, Director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg; Mr Lacey Williams, Managing Director of Caritrans Ltd; Ms Selena Mohammed-Wilson, Transportation Consultant for SMW Consultancy in Jamaica; and Mr Curtis Mohammed, President of the NGC CNG Company Ltd and Vice President of the Sustainable Energy Development at the National Energy Corporation.
Transportation Symposium 2021, spearheaded by Dr Trevor Townsend, Senior Lecturer in Traffic and Transportation Engineering, is the second event of its kind.
“We need to imagine the world we want to live in,” said Professor Raymond during his presentation “Conjectures on Movement and Mobility in the Caribbean”. In his presentation, he focused on the way architecture and urban design impact transportation, emphasising the development of post-colonial societies such as Trinidad and Tobago, and how their desire to build “modern”, “utopian”, and “heroic” cities had the downside of leading to sprawling freeways that disturbed the landscape, radically affected how people lived, and contributed to the dependence on cars. Professor Raymond advocated for urban planning (including transportation systems) that married the “need for movement with culture”, pointing to modern societies such as Barcelona and even Port-of-Spain in earlier eras.
Cars were a major topic throughout the symposium – their contribution to traffic congestion, their impact on the environment, and the role they play in road fatalities. Speaking on the topic “Road Transport Safety”, Caritrans Managing Director Lacey Williams shared surprisingly positive data about lower rates of deaths on T&T’s roads.
“Over the past decade, we have seen a halving of road fatalities,” Mr Williams said in his contribution on the nation’s road safety improvements, driving behaviour, demerit point system, and areas for education and collaboration for further progress.
From 2011 to 2021, he explained, “We have gone from a high of almost 200 [fatalities] at the beginning of the decade to just under 100.”
He pointed to the role of policies such as the introduction of a breathalyser, enforcement of rules on speeding, and some degree of heavy vehicle weight enforcement.
Ms Selena Mohammed-Wilson, who spoke on private sector participation in public transport services, said “governments face an ever-growing dilemma” to pay for developments to transportation systems, and working with the private sector was a viable means to get it done. There were several advantages to such partnerships, she explained, including access to finance, technology, the transfer of risk, and investment opportunities.
“Green Transport Solutions” was an especially relevant topic in the current global environment, and NGC CNG President Curtis Mohammed gave a strong presentation on T&T’s progress towards more sustainable transportation and what needs to happen.
“The greenest form of transport, at the end of the day, is walking,” Mr Mohammed said, sharing an image of the “Green Pyramid” of transportation which showed in order of positive impact – walking, cycling, buses/maxis, taxis, carpooling, and at the bottom, cars.
He mentioned as well, government’s draft policy to accelerate green transformation, the Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Policy and Action Plan for Trinidad and Tobago 2020 to 2024. Mr Mohammed was hopeful that the policy, which is still being formulated, would further T&T’s current gains.
The smaller groups on the second day of the symposium consisted of in-depth discussions by the attendees on the highlighted themes. This also allowed for some insight into the attendees, their roles and experiences within the transportation industry, reinforcing the collaboration being fostered among the islands. On Day 3, action agendas were presented and plenary discussions held.
Attendees from over 17 countries around the world and scores of participants took part in the presentations and discussions. At its core, the symposium emphasised the need for collaboration.
As Dr Townsend said in his remarks, “Problem-solving needs the [collective diversity] of our Caribbean identities.”