It is sometimes said that if you can drive in Cairo, you can drive anywhere. Motorists and pedestrians travelling by Cairo's roads must develop special maneuvering skills in order to survive, and it can be hard to know what's going to happen next when it comes to venturing onto the city's streets. The almost unfathomable numbers of vehicles and poor infrastructure have made the capital's streets chaotic, chronically blocked and sometimes virtually unbearable. Traffic congestion is a serious problem in the Greater Cairo metropolitan area, and it has negative effects on travel times, the environment, public health, and business operations, causing the country to lose huge amounts of money. One recent study by the World Bank estimated that Cairo's congestion problems were costing the country LE50 billion a year, or four per cent of Egypt's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The figure includes losses to productivity due to people sitting in traffic instead of working, additional fuel consumed due to prolonged travel times, and the environmental impact of increased vehicle emissions. President Mohamed Morsi had said that solving the city's traffic problems is one of his top priorities. However, Cairo's traffic has not improved since he took office, and if anything it has been getting worse. The roads have become more crowded than ever and accidents on Cairo's roads are on the rise. The country now loses about 12,000 lives due to accidents every year, and it has one of the highest road-traffic fatality rates in the world, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). All attempts to solve Cairo's traffic problems have been apparently unable to solve them. Since the traditional solutions have failed, it has now become time to try new and innovative solutions that could help alleviate the traffic problems. One such potential solution was demonstrated at the first-ever Cairo Transport App Challenge (Cairo TApp), which concluded last month. Launched in June 2012, the Cairo TApp engages technologists on transport challenges such as harassment and other personal safety issues and the inefficient microbus system, and it encourages shared rides and car-pooling, increases in effective traffic enforcement, and improved driver behaviour. Egyptian technology specialists worked with stakeholders and experts in transport and urban development to develop 23 new mobile applications, or apps, which were then whittled down to 10 finalists who competed in the final round of the competition in which the top three apps were chosen. The competition was organised in cooperation with the World Bank, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Ministry of Transport, and the country's active technology community. First prize went to Beliaa, a mobile application designed to assist car owners. The name Beliaa was inspired by the local boys, usually aged 14 or 15 years old, who work as car mechanics and are often called “Beliaa”. By using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, Beliaa helps drivers to locate road assistance centres and sends maintenance requests to authorised car workshops. The app is also integrated into the system maintained by the Department of Traffic, providing quick and reliable traffic updates. The Beliaa team won $3,000 for their work and an invitation to attend the 2013 Mobile World Congress, which was held last week in Barcelona. Second prize went to the Emokhalfa, or electronic fine system, which is an application that provides a platform for people to report on traffic-related violations. “You can file a report on anyone who's going in the wrong direction, speeding, or throwing garbage out into the road,” said Wael Khalifa, the developer of Emokhalfa. The aim of the application is to provide a means for motorists to report traffic-related violations they see during their day-to-day commuting. These reports are used to put pressure on drivers that do not follow correct driving behaviour. Khalifa said that the application could be useful to a mother, for example, whose children go to school by bus, since she could use the application to discover any violations reported against the bus driver. “If violations are detected, the mother could then contact the children's school and ask it to take the appropriate action,” Khalifa said. The same applies to private drivers or to parents whose children drive, Khalifa noted, adding that he had drawn up agreements with road-safety NGOs in order to provide them with statistics on roads and areas notorious for frequent traffic violations in a way that would allow decision-makers to take appropriate action. “We had one case in a certain area in Maadi, for example, where taxi drivers put children in the car's trunk,” Khalifa said. In addition to the mobile application, the system also includes three other channels for people to report traffic infringements, for example through the technology's website at www.emokhalfa.com, or through its pages on social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, the Emokhalfa team has developed a hotline to receive traffic-violation reports. In order to make a report, all that is necessary is basic information, such as the vehicle's number plate, when and where the violation took place, and what happened. “This information is mandatory to report an infringement,” Khalifa said. “Otherwise the violation cannot be identified.” Khalifa's own suffering in Cairo traffic was the reason that inspired him to develop the Emokhalfa application, and he spoke for many when he said that driving in Cairo was becoming intolerable and was getting on everyone's nerves. “The problem isn't about roads being crowded as much as about worrying about your own safety and whether you will get home safely at all,” he said. He said that crowded roads were now a fact of life everywhere, but Egypt's roads were also unsafe. For this reason, he had developed his application in a bid to make the country's roads safer and free of violations. Emokhalfa has been active for three months, and people's interest has exceeded Khalifa's expectations. “People have been very helpful, and we now receive many reports everyday,” he said. Besides winning the $2,000 second prize, Emokhalfa also won Cairo TApp's Microsoft Award, receiving a free Windows phone for developing a Windows-compatible app. Cairo's traffic problems also prompted Ahmed Noureddin and his team to develop the Autobeesy Feen (where is my bus?) mobile application, which won third prize in the competition. Autobeesy Feen won $1,000, and it was also the public's favourite. During their university years, Noureddin and his friends used to wait at bus stops for hours in the hope that their bus would arrive. Sometimes, they were lucky enough to catch the bus, but just as often their missed it. Unfortunately, the capital suffers from an unreliable public-transport system, and there is a lack of data about it such that it can be hard to know the arrival times of buses and their destinations. “There are roughly three billion hours wasted a year as a result of waiting for buses,” Noureddin said. This was reason enough for Noureddin and his team to develop the Autobeesy Feen application, which tells commuters when and where their bus was last seen. Through using GPS technology, the app allows people to share information about the time they took the bus, the status of the bus, and the state of the traffic. “When a commuter logs onto the app and enters his bus number, all shared information about the bus will appear,” Noureddin told Al-Ahram Weekly. “In this way, a commuter can know when his bus was last seen and whether it's crowded or not.” According to Noureddin, such information can help people estimate when their bus will arrive, as well the status of the bus and the roads. This information could help them take decisions about whether to wait for the bus or to take another means of transport should the bus be late or crowded. Autobeesy Feen is not only a bus-tracking app, however, since commuters who are in an unfamiliar area can use the application to guide them to the nearest bus station where they can check the state of the traffic. Autobeesy Feen was first launched in a trial version covering the area of Abdu Basha, near to the Cairo neighbourhood of Abbasiya. Noureddin said that the team was now working on developing the application to include broader areas, including more of Abbasiya and Nasr City. “As soon as we finish collecting the data, we will launch the application,” he said. The team had ambitious plans for the future, he added, since it plans to cover the whole of the Greater Cairo metropolitan area. Tackling an age-old problem like Cairo's traffic by using brand-new technologies emphasises the role that entrepreneurship can play in addressing society's social and economic challenges. Khalifa for one believes that local problems should be solved by local entrepreneurs who should search for new solutions to traditional issues. “We should think outside the box,” he said. Noureddin agreed, saying that there were no problems without solutions, but it was up to people to find the solutions. Both Khalifa and Noureddin said that they would continue developing more apps in the future with the aim of helping solve Cairo's many problems. Mobile applications now provide an accessible platform to improve service delivery and help tackle problems such as those facing Egypt's capital. This, in part, has been supported by the now-saturated mobile market in Egypt. According to government figures, the country's three mobile phone operators, Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat, together had 92 million subscribers as of April 2012, with a monthly growth rate of 14 per cent and an annual growth rate of 23.41 per cent. In addition, the use of smart phones has expanded rapidly in Egypt in recent years. Smart phones are mobile phones with advanced computing capabilities and connectivity, allowing them to operate a large number of mobile applications.
