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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      Background to the study

The problem of Mobility and safety is on the high side on the Nation’s transportation system. The impact of traffic congestion is palpable to anyone witnessing delay on Lagos roadways. An estimated 8 million people travel to work via public transportation each day on the 9,100 roads and expressways available in Lagos (World Bank, 2009). With more than 1 million registered vehicles in 2011, there are potentially more than one million trips made during the peak travel periods of the day; this is much more during seasonal festivities such as Easter and Christmas when there is an influx from other parts of the country. A recent study estimated the cost of traffic congestion in U.S. cities for 2005 at $78 billion, with 4.2 billion hours of delay and 2.9 billion gallons of fuel wasted. Fatalities on U.S. highways rose to 43,443 in 2005.58 Public transportation systems provided 10.1 billion trips in 2006, the highest in 49 years, with continuing increases documented through the first three quarters of 2007.59 Freight volume on U.S. highways is expected to increase to 22.8 billion tons in 2035, up from 11.5 billion tons in 2002. Commuters in Lagos experience the effects of traffic congestion on a daily basis.

According to Adebiyi (2011), the congestion is caused partly by road users themselves. Lagos road users are known to be very impatient and bad at obeying traffic rules. Indeed many times traffic congestions have been caused by a driver refusing to give way for another motorist. The effects of congestion are many fold; some directly affect the drivers’ sense of wellbeing, be it times wasted sitting in a traffic queue and the changes in the behaviour of drivers. Such behaviour might include rude gestures, verbal insults, deliberately driving in an unsafe or threatening manner, or making threats. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) provide a proven set of strategies for addressing the challenges of assuring safety and reducing congestion, while accommodating the growth in transit ridership and freight movement. ITS improve transportation safety and mobility, and enhance productivity through the use of advanced communications, sensors, and information processing technologies encompassing a broad range of wireless and wireline communications-based information and electronics. When integrated into the transportation system’s infrastructure, and into vehicles themselves, these technologies relieve congestion, improve safety, and enhance U.S. productivity. Vehicle infrastructure integration has the potential to enable many services presently provided by infrastructureor vehicle-based ITS to benefit from enhanced communication between vehicles and the infrastructure. ITS deployment can impact transportation system performance in six key goal areas: safety, mobility, efficiency, productivity, energy and environment, and customer satisfaction.

A wide variety of performance measures are used across the evaluations discussed in this report to assess ITS performance under each of these goal areas. Safety is measured through changes in crash rates or other surrogate measures such as vehicle speeds, traffic conflicts, or traffic law violations. Mobility improvements have been measured in travel time or delay savings, as well as travel time budget savings, and on-time performance. Efficiency findings document the capability of better managed transportation facilities to accommodate additional demand, typically represented through increases in capacity or level of service within existing road networks or transit systems. Productivity improvements are typically documented in cost savings to transportation providers, travelers, or shippers. Benefits in the area of Energy and Environment are typically documented through fuel savings and reduced pollutant emissions. Customer Satisfaction findings measure, usually through surveys, the perception of deployed ITS by the traveling public.

1.2  STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Managing urban traffic requires finding a balance between throughput, livability, safety and sustainability. As cities are expected to grow in the coming decades (leading to increased traffic demand), the challenge of managing traffic will increase, as space to develop road networks is often limited or non-existing. That urban traffic is characterized by a mix of different modes of transport (pedestrians, bicycles, public transport, motorized vehicles) makes the challenge even more complex. It is in view of the above challenges that the researcher intend to investigate the effectiveness of intelligent transport system in curbing the menace of traffic congestion and pollutions in our city.

1.3  OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is to ascertain the effectiveness of intelligent transport system in curbing the menace of traffic congestion and traffic jam. But to aid the completion of the study, the researcher intends to achieve the following specific objective:

i) To ascertain the effect of intelligent transport system in effective functioning of the transport system in Nigeria.

ii) To investigate if there is any significant relationship between intelligent transport system and Nigeria’s Intelligent Transportation system

iii) Ascertain the importance of Educate the public and key players in the Nigerian transport system on the need for ITS and how intelligent transportation system can be deployed in Nigeria.

iv)  To proffer suggested solution to the identified problem

1.4   RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To aid the completion of the study, the following research questions were formulated by the researcher;

i)  Is there any positiveeffect of intelligent transport system in effective functioning of the transport system in Nigeria?

ii) Is there any significant relationship between intelligent transport system and Nigeria’s Intelligent Transportation system?

iii) does educating the key players in the Nigerian transport system have any impact on the adoption and implementation of ITS in Nigeria?

1.5      RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

To aid the completion of the study, the following research hypotheses were formulated by the researcher

H0:there is nopositiveeffect of intelligent transport system in effective functioning of the transport system in Nigeria

H1:there is a positiveeffect of intelligent transport system in effective functioning of the transport system in Nigeria

H02:there is no significant relationship between intelligent transport system and Nigeria’s Intelligent Transportation system

H2:there is a significant relationship between intelligent transport system and Nigeria’s Intelligent Transportation system.

1.6      SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is believed that at the completion of the study, the findings will be of great importance to the federal ministry of transport, this is because the study seek explore the importance of the benefit of adopting intelligent transport system in combating traffic and other transport hazards, the study will also be useful to road users as the study will educate them on the tremendous be the tremendous benefit of adopting intelligent transport system, the study will also be of great importance to researcher who intend to embark on study in a similar topic as the study will serve as a reference point for further study, finally the study will also be of great importance to the general public as the study will also contribute to the pool of available literature on the subject matter.

1.7   SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study covers the effectiveness of intelligent transport system on the growth of the Nigerian transport sector, but in the cause of the study, there were some factors which limited the scope of the study;

a) AVAILABILITY OF RESEARCH MATERIAL: The research material available to the researcher is insufficient, thereby limiting the study

b) TIME: The time frame allocated to the study does not enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic activities and examinations with the study.

c) Finance: the finances at the disposal of the researcher which is allocated to the study is a major constrain to the scope of the study, this is because the available resources has to be effectively utilized to cover other academic activities.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Intelligent transport system

An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application which, without embodying intelligence as such, aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable various users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'smarter' use of transport networks

Transport: Transport or transportation is the movement of humans, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operations.

Transport Network: A transport network, or transportation network is a realization of a spatial network, describing a structure which permits either vehicular movement or flow of some commodity. Examples are network of roads and streets, railways, pipes, aqueducts, and power lines

1.9 PLAN OF THE STUDY

The research report of this study is divided into 5 chapters. Chapter one consist of introduction to the study and it is sub-divided into 9 headings which are background of the study, statement of problem, research questions etc. Chapter two is the literature review which comprise of the conceptual, empirical and theoretical framework. Chapter three is the research methodology which mainly concerns itself about the design of the study, the method of data collection, sample size, sampling technique, method of data analysis and the decision rule. The second to the last chapter, chapter four comprise of the research data presentation and analysis and the last chapter, chapter five is the summary, conclusion and recommendation of the research