From time to time major incidents on our roads occur and, very often, the ensuing chaos/inconvenience leaves no doubt whatsoever that collateral damage needs to be managed effectively to prevent such instances turning into expensive crises.

The Msida car bomb incident a few days ago had serious security implications. But there was another worrying factor that got lost in the bigger picture. Many road users anywhere near the arterial road where the bomb went off were irked by the apparent inability of the public authorities to handle the situation.

The ever-increasing congestion of roads as a result of the number of cars, lack of proper traffic management systems and a road network that is clearly inadequate for today’s needs make it imperative for Transport Malta, the police and traffic wardens to coordinate a contingency plan to manage the flow of traffic in the area affected by major incidents and prevent such incidents from turning into major crises.

Failing to manage the fallout from major road incidents could have a high economic and human cost. A few years ago, most of Malta’s road network was paralysed when a heavy vehicle hit a bridge near the Marsa racecourse. The multilane arterial road there was closed for several hours. Yet, traffic kept flowing in the direction of the closed road because many road users were not aware of what had happened.

The Msida car bomb incident had similar effects as hundreds of drivers kept flowing from all directions on their way to and from Valletta and the south of the island not realising that the arterial road where the incident happened was closed by the police until forensic investigations were carried out. The economic cost of the resulting road blockages, with hundreds of people who were going about doing their work being caught up in a gridlock that lasted for a long time, must have been quite high.

Perhaps even more importantly, one wonders whether any medical emergencies were affected by the inability of ambulances or doctors to attend to the urgent needs of sick people requiring to go to hospital. It is bad enough driving on ‘normal’ days as people are getting used to long delays in traffic jams. However, it is unacceptable when Transport Malta, the police and any other public authority responsible for traffic management are repeatedly caught unprepared to deal with such emergencies.

Nobody is likely to claim responsibility for the hardship and financial cost the Msida incident has caused to hundreds of people. What is evident to many road users is that there appears to be no real plan in place to deal with traffic management when major road incidents occur.

Alerting people via the various radio stations, the social media and electronic message boards already in place on the road network could be a first step to deal with the situation. More importantly, the public authorities should ensure there is a contingency plan to ensure that when such incidents occur there is visible and effective intervention of the police, transport authority officials and traffic wardens to avoid the chaos that invariably follows the closure of an arterial road.

It is inevitable that, from time to time, there will be incidents that necessitate road closure. Of course, such incidents cannot be predicted. What is avoidable, however is that the public authorities responsible for keeping traffic flowing are caught unprepared to deal with the collateral consequences of major road incidents that cause so much economic and human hardship to so many.

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