An Assessment Of The Effects Of The ‘New’ Road Safety Regulations On Passenger Service Vehicle Operations In Nairobi, Kenya

ABSTRACT

The study examines the effects of the „new‟ road safety regulations on the operations of PSVs in Nairobi. Specifically, the study sought to a) examine changes in the input and output of PSV in Nairobi, b) establish changes in the working conditions of PSV drivers and conductors, c) assess changes in the quality of service of public transport, and finally, d) examine the challenges and opportunities in implementing and enforcing the„new‟ regulations. The study was descriptive, comparative and cross sectional in nature whereby only a section of the PSV operators were sampled to participate in the study. Data for this study was collected using structured and un-structured questionnaires, which targeted the PSV owners, drivers/conductors and commuters. Key informants were drawn from Traffic Police, TLB, Ministry of Transport, Local Authority and Matatu welfare associations. A sample size of 120 PSVs was considered. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data processing and analysis. The data was mainly analyzed using descriptive statistics and the hypotheses were tested using the student t-test. The data was presented using simple tabular comparison of means, graphs, charts and text.

The findings indicated that there was a significant change in terms of input cost and output of PSVs (P0.05), minimal changes were observed on the working conditions of the PSV drivers and conductors, the quality of transport service improved after the regulations were implemented and that the key enforcers of the regulations face a lot of challenges in enforcing these regulations. The two null hypotheses (HO) were rejected at P0.05. In general, it can be concluded that the „new‟ regulations were generally good, however poor implementation and enforcement has hindered its success. Therefore, it is recommended that for these regulations to be sustainable, a strict and consistent implementation and enforcement is needed