GIS IN ROAD TRAFFIC CONGESTION MANAGEMENT IN METROPOLITAN LAGOS,NIGERIA

摘要

Road traffic congestion is a significant attendant effect of urbanization; hence road traffic congestion is synonymous with cities of the world. The consequent implications of congestion on urban dwellers therefore, are the unpredictability of travel time, delays,road crashes; and pollution as a result of 'stop and go' traffic scenario. For instance, in Metropolitan Lagos road traffic congestion on the major corridors aggravates, over time and space, as the city sprawl beyond its bound in the last two decades. Research findings on traffic congestion causal factors and its implications on Metropolitan Lagos identified human and engineering factors, land use abuse, urban sprawl as the primary factors responsible for the phenomenon. Meanwhile, erratic fare structure, air and noise pollution,excessive energy consumption, road crashes are identified as the major negative impacts of congestion on the city and the city dwellers. However, the aim of this paper is to investigate the spatial pattern of road traffic bottlenecks, which are conspicuously pronounced on Metropolitan Lagos roads at peak periods. This is with a view to determining the extent of the contribution of traffic bottlenecks,on selected Lagos roads, to travel delays; commuters travel time elongations in Metropolitan Lagos and the challenge of unpredictability of travel time across the city. The traffic bottlenecks spatial pattern data was collected using Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine the coordinates of the identified bottleneck points on the selected corridors. The data therefore was graphically presented using Arc View GIS. Again, data on commuters travel time at peak period were collected through administration of questionnaire on selected numbers of commuters and through researcher several travels on the selected corridors over a period of time. The findings revealed a clustered pattern of traffic congestion bottlenecks, which aided traffic jam and consequent delays. Also, the clustered characteristic of the bottnecks revealed a scenario of an average of about 500 metres interval between bottleneck points, which often aided the 'stop and go'scenario on Lagos roads. This paper, citing examples from developed and developing countries, therefore recommended complementing the prevailing manual traffic management systems in Lagos with the deployment of combination of Advance Traffic Information System (ATIS), automated GIS map and other related Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) infrastructure, for a real time traffic information and incidents management on Metropolitan Lagos roads.