Traffic. That word sounds like a four-letter swear word. There is nothing as soul-sucking as sitting in traffic. Not only is traffic served cold in the morning on your way to work but also served chilled in the evening on your way home. For a sometime now traffic was an acceptable part of daily routine of the Nairobi city commuter. But not anymore.
A Commercial Office 2014 Survey by Mentor Management, released on yesterday at the Serena hotel, shows traffic jams are driving businesses out of the Nairobi’s CBD. Nairobi’s Upper Hill and Mombasa Road areas are also facing a possible migration of offices to less congested areas such as Westlands, Waiyaki Way and Gigiri areas. The report names Ngong Road and Kilimani as the other commercial areas that are increasingly facing challenges resulting from traffic congestion.
“These are potentially prime office areas but occupiers are being put off by heavy congestion.” said CEO of Mentor Management, Mr. James Hoddell.
Looks like the traffic situation in Nairobi needs some proactive action. And that is what our fellow compatriots in Nigeria have just done. A new mobile app called TrafficButter is helping motorists in Nigerian cities follow roads that are less congested and receive notifications when there are new incidents on the roads they follow.
The primary feature of the TrafficButter app is the precise presentation of traffic updates on the homepage and the map landing pages. Other secondary features include Geo location, chat, comments with location stamp for credibilty on traffic reporting, and keyword search. There is also a leader board which shows the top contributors to the app. A strange twist to the app is that users are rewarded for contributing to the app and to the community. Points are awarded for each contribution to app. These points can be exchanged for real-life items at appointed Nigerian stores.
TrafficButter app is available for download for Blackberry, Android and iOS devices. Currently this is a service that is confined to Nigeria but this is a service we will all buy here in Kenya. There you have it. You got an opportunity. And an app idea. Lets bring a solution to Nairobi traffic menace.
