Abstract:
Transportation services are highly needed for human beings in day-to-day activities. It takes the
lion share in the economy, social and political development activities. Now a day, transportation
service is challenged by many factors that affect the transportation effectiveness. From those
factors, traffic congestion is one of the major problems in the transportation system development
due to different reasons in both developed and developing countries. This study focused on
examining the mediating effect of traffic congestion severity on economic cost: case study in
Nifas silk Lafto sub-city, Addis Ababa Ethiopia. To achieve this objective, descriptive and
explanatory research design with both qualitative and quantitative approach was used in the
study. The study used Convenience sampling method to get a sample of 385respondents. Data
was collected from primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected from
respondents by using Likert scale type questionnaire, interview, field measurement and traffic
flow raw data was used as source of secondary data. Descriptive statistics such as means,
frequency and standard deviation and inferential statistics (correlation, regression and
structural equation model) by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences and Analysis of
Moment of structure was used to analyze data. Based on the analysis of the result, the key cause
of traffic congestion at Jemo Michael intersection are road condition, population numbers
increase, vehicles numbers increase, insufficient traffic management and Parking problem. Level
of traffic congestion at Jemo and Germen approach is very highly congested approach (F-level
of service), on the other hand Ayer tena and Lideta approach are E level of service. When we
look economic cost of traffic congestion, the total extra fuel consumption 217,640 lit and cost of
extra fuel consumption per year at Jemo Michael intersection 4,352,814ETB.Additionally,total
extra travel time loss 497,124.1minute(8285.4hours) and economic cost of congestion wasted
travel time at Jemo Michael intersection is 25,891,656.25 ETB. The main mitigation way of
traffic congestion is improving width of the existing road capacity, building new alternative road
and developing parking management strategies. Encouraging mass transportation system and
working on capacity building of traffic management with improve traffic management strategies
are other mitigating strategies.
