African Transport Studies最新文献

{"title":"Improving Addis Ababa light railway transit using a combined Monte Carlo simulation and queuing theory model: Data and model dual-driven approach","authors":"Tamene Taye Worku ,&nbsp;Abraham Assefa Tsehayae","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100045","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100045","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The primary issues affecting passenger satisfaction of AALRT customers are congestion and long waiting lines. Consequently, the main objective of this study was to develop a model aimed at improving AALRT service. To achieve this goal, the research first examined the congestion conditions of AALRT, followed by an analysis of the properties of the primary data. Next, a new model was developed using the integrated MCQT approach. Finally, this model and the AALRT service were validated through a marginal analysis focusing on service quality, profitability, and the reduction of environmental pollution. The study utilized primary data gathered from selected stations and secondary data obtained from the AALRT revenue office. The data analysis employed an MCQT model based on the probability distributions of boarding and alighting passengers across all corridors, directions, and design periods.</div><div>The findings indicate that the AALRT service experiences congestion in the west-east corridor while being underutilized in the north-south corridor. The probability distribution of passenger flows on the AALRT appears to follow uniform, binomial, or negative binomial distributions. In 2019, a maximum of 7 and 3 tramcars per hour was needed for both the west-east and north-south corridors respectively, with the potential to increase to a maximum of 8 double and 8 single tramcars per hour. Overall, the new model enhances service quality, profitability, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions in Addis Ababa's public transport system. In summary, the integrated MCQT effectively addresses the limitations of queuing theory, Markov chains, and other related theories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100045"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144138942","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Vulnerable road users through safe systems lenses? Perspectives from transport professionals in Ghana on pedestrians and motorcyclists","authors":"William Agyemang ,&nbsp;Steven Jones ,&nbsp;Emmanuel Kofi Adanu ,&nbsp;Jun Liu ,&nbsp;Xinwu Qian","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100025","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100025","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The problem of road traffic crashes is more acute in low- and middle-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which exhibits the worst regional death rates per population in the world. Vulnerable road users (VRUs) constitute a significant proportion of road traffic casualties across the region. The provision of a safe transport system to address this problem is crucial to the socio-economic development of SSA. This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge of transport professionals in Ghana relating to the complex safety issues of VRUs within the context of the <em>Safe Systems</em> approach and to explore how the local context could guide its implementation. The study used an online survey to collect relevant information from transport professionals on their understanding of the <em>Safe Systems</em> approach and used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize countermeasures for two types of VRUs: pedestrians and motorcyclists. The findings from the study revealed that for pedestrians, transport professionals were more concerned with the enforcement of pedestrian laws by the law enforcement agencies followed by outreach and educational programs for the pedestrians. Whereas for motorcyclists, enforcement of motorcyclist laws and education were priority countermeasures proposed by the transport professionals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100025"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143097865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lessons in traffic: Nairobi's school term congestion and equity challenges","authors":"Charles R.S. Hatfield ,&nbsp;Anna Kustar ,&nbsp;Marcel Reinmuth ,&nbsp;Constant Cap ,&nbsp;Agraw Ali Beshir ,&nbsp;Jacqueline M. Klopp ,&nbsp;Alexander Zipf ,&nbsp;James Rising ,&nbsp;Thet Hein Tun","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100044","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100044","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The specific needs of children – and the impacts of road design, traffic, and congestion on them – tend to be poorly addressed in transport planning, including in cities like Nairobi. While a growing body of research on the geography of education in African cities has delved into aspects of school travel, equity, and their effects on learning, the influence of school sessions, which induces unique trip dynamics, remains largely unexplored. This paper aims to address this gap through a data-driven analysis of traffic effects when schools are in session, compared to holidays in Nairobi. We leverage real-time road speed information from the publicly available Uber Movement data for 2019 to model congestion spatially and temporally. We achieve this by modeling travel times to the central business district (CBD) from across the city for both school term and holiday periods, as well as by measuring changes in mean daily and hourly road speeds across different road types between the two periods. Through this analysis, we found that mean road speeds across the city were statistically significantly lower during the school term than during the holiday period with secondary roads overrepresented among the most congested roads in the city. There was also high positive spatial autocorrelation for changes in travel times to the CBD across the city with some clusters experiencing significant increases in travel times while others experienced significant decreases. The high degree of clustering, decreased road speeds, and overburdening of specific road types suggests potential equity and economic impacts of congestion, which may be closely connected to inadequate land use and planning regarding children's education and school travel. Overall, this suggests that better planning for schools could help reduce congestion, while improving child health and well-being.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100044"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143947269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Deep-learning based recognition on paved road shoulder for the Namibia B2 highway","authors":"Cailis Bullard ,&nbsp;Marco Knipfer ,&nbsp;Erik Johnson ,&nbsp;Abhay Lidbe ,&nbsp;Steven Jones","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100028","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100028","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The number of road crash-related deaths worldwide has continued to steadily grow, reaching 1.35 million deaths every year. Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) bear a disproportionately high number of these deaths in relation to both their population size and the total number of in-use vehicles. One of the daunting challenges facing LMICs is the lack of road safety features and built environment and their required maintenance, which can be attributed to the rising road safety concerns. Namibia, in Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception. Routine road safety audits (RSA) can aid in locating areas of the road network that need maintenance and/or require the installation of safety features. However, constrained by the limited resources for road safety initiatives, RSA are rarely performed in Namibia and LMICs. Therefore, this study demonstrates a low-cost open-source technique that can be fairly used as a supplementary tool to ease the practice of RSA in LMICs. The study presents a Deep-learning approach for classification of the presence of road shoulder and its width on a small dataset from the Highway B2 in Namibia using open access Google Street View images. Results indicate that road shoulder width can clearly be classified with open-source software, readily available models, and open access data. Results from this study have the potential to lower the overall cost of RSA in LMICs and allow for the prudent allocation of limited transportation-related funding that can create a positive impact on road safety problems in these countries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100028"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143097757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Examining the spatial disparities of urban public transport fares in Kumasi, Ghana – Are fares consistent by route characteristics?","authors":"Gift Dumedah ,&nbsp;Seidu Iddrisu ,&nbsp;Gabriel Alexander Kpevu ,&nbsp;Precious Adwoa Okyere ,&nbsp;Patrick Azong","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100032","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100032","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Transport fares are a critical revenue stream for any sustainable public transportation system. The literature on public transport fares in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is very limited and it is unknown the fare structures used, how they are determined, and the factors considered. Accordingly, this study investigates the spatial disparities of public transport fares in the city of Kumasi, Ghana. Using a spatial analytic approach, we examined the extent to which fares are spatially dissimilar across routes based on travel distance, travel time, mode, economic status, and population. Primary data was collected using the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)-like format, allowing the estimation of key performance indicators such as fare per kilometer travelled, fare per minute travelled, and average fare paid per passenger. Secondary data on economic status and population density were used. Based on 48 routes for minibus and taxis, we found that one kilometer of travel distance attracts fares between 1 Ghana Cedis (GHS) (0.08USD) and 8GHS (0.71USD), whereas one minute of travel time attracts fares between 1GHS and 6GHS. For each kilometer travelled, Taxi (i.e. saloon car) services charge 3.5 times for every GHS fare for a minibus (i.e. Trotro), whereas for each minute travelled, Taxi services charge 2.2 times for every GHS fare for Trotro. Relationships with economic status show that economically disadvantaged populations pay more fares, travel longer distances, and spend more time travelling. Essentially, economically disadvantaged populations are burdened with higher travel costs. Also, travel cost was found to be more influenced by distance than the fares charged in Kumasi. Highly populated communities were found to pay relatively higher fares, and travel longer durations and over longer distances, but are associated with lower fare rates. The findings show that fares for paratransit services are inconsistent in Kumasi and are spatially differentiated by route, distance travelled, travel time, service type, economic status, and population density. There is limited evidence that fares are deliberately inconsistent, however, fare disparities are the direct outcome of the existing systemic structural arrangement with paratransit, mostly built on underlying political economy, social injustice, labor exploitation, and lack of investment. It is recommended that transport authorities define a clear fare structure, apply it consistently, and communicate the rationale and the driving factors behind fare disparities to ensure transparency in pricing public transport services.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100032"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143512522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adapting AI-based speed violation detection systems for Africa: A case study with Nigeria","authors":"Emmanuel Tobechukwu Ugboko ,&nbsp;Sung Bae Jo","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100035","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100035","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Road traffic accidents pose a severe threat to public health and economic stability in Africa, with Nigeria bearing one of the highest road injury death rates globally. Speeding remains a significant contributor to fatal accidents across the continent, necessitating urgent interventions for effective speed management. In response, this paper presents a pioneering Speed Violation Detection System for Nigerian roads and a robust approach to Speed Violation Detection in Africa, leveraging artificial intelligence techniques.</div><div>Through targeted redesign and rigorous adaptation of existing AI-based speed detection strategies, this system introduces several modifications tailored for Nigerian road conditions. These include a custom tracking algorithm that eliminates the need for manual pixel-per-meter estimations, an enhanced vehicle detection model optimized for poor-quality road camera footage and unstructured traffic, and a localized license plate recognition system fine-tuned with a dataset of 24,242 Nigerian plate images. Additionally, the system integrates cloud-based data logging via AWS S3, ensuring secure, remote access for law enforcement agencies, thereby improving record-keeping and enforcement efficiency.</div><div>The system demonstrates strong capabilities in real-time vehicle detection, tracking, speed estimation, violators' plate-number capturing, and comprehensive data archiving. Its deployment holds promise for transforming road safety enforcement in Africa, offering law enforcement agencies invaluable tools to combat speeding and prevent accidents. The scalability and adaptability of the system underscore its potential for broader applications within Nigeria's traffic management infrastructure, marking a significant step towards achieving sustainable development goals centered on road safety and public well-being.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100035"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143643804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of transport infrastructure on poverty, income inequality, and unemployment in developing countries: An assessment of sustainable development goals","authors":"Manel Ouni ,&nbsp;Rafaa Mraihi","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100050","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100050","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals prioritizes the elimination of poverty, reduction of income inequality, and achievement of full and productive employment for all. However, inadequate transport infrastructure remains a key barrier to these goals, as it hampers the movement of goods and people between urban and rural areas, limiting access to economic and employment opportunities. This study examines the potential of transport infrastructure in alleviating poverty, reducing income disparities, and curbing unemployment in a panel of 49 developing countries from 2000 to 2023. Using a two-stage Instrumental Variable Generalized Method of Moments approach, our findings reveals that road and rail infrastructure significantly contribute to poverty alleviation in developing countries, while air freight is associated with higher poverty levels. Regarding income inequality, improvements in road, rail, and port connectivity are associated to reduced inequality, while port traffic and air freight appear to have no significant effect. All types of transport infrastructure are effective in reducing unemployment. Our results emphasize the role of economic growth, trade openness, and domestic investment in promoting inclusive growth through inequality and poverty reduction. In contrast, human capital reduces poverty and unemployment but worsens inequality. Regional analysis revealed that the results varies across regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East &amp; North Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, and Latin America-Caribbean countries. These findings are robust to an alternative econometric technique. These insights offer some important policy implications for developing countries aiming to achieve SDGs 1, 8, and 10 in alignment with the Millennium Development Goals. Therefore, reinforcing transport infrastructure emerges as a key strategy to promote spectacular inclusive growth across diverse regional contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100050"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144280447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating perceived accessibility to workplace and shopping destinations in informal urban communities in Ghana and Tanzania","authors":"Gift Dumedah ,&nbsp;Keziah Adobea Otchere ,&nbsp;Patrick Azong ,&nbsp;Emmanuel Dzisi ,&nbsp;Hannibal Bwire","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100031","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100031","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Transport-related accessibility is important, as it enables individuals to live their daily lives and travel to activity destinations they value. Access to valued opportunities is a prerequisite to address social inclusion and quality of life. Unlike conventional accessibility measures, perceived accessibility focuses on the perceived possibilities and ease of engaging in preferred activities using different transport modes. Perceived access to essential destinations such as workplaces and shopping, and its integration with objective measures are severely under-studied in sub-Saharan African cities. Kumasi-Ghana and Dar es Salaam-Tanzania offer an ideal case for investigating the effects of accessibility to workplace and shopping destinations in the context of informal urban communities. This study measures perceived accessibility, determines its comparability to objective measures, and examines the underlying socio-demographic factors to better understand the factors influencing commuters' perceptions of accessibility. Our findings established a relationship between perceived and objective accessibility to workplaces and shopping in both cities. Commuters' ratings of accessibility in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania were lower than those from Kumasi-Ghana. This was in agreement with higher travel times to these destinations in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania compared to Kumasi-Ghana. We found that the decreasing order of influence on travel perception in both cities is travel characteristics, community transport, and the built environment. Also, the decreasing order of impact on travel is travel cost, time, and frequency, highlighting travel cost as the primary concern for residents in both cities. Relatedly, the decreasing order of influence on travel perception is comfort, satisfaction, and success in Kumasi-Ghana whereas in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania it is travel success, satisfaction, and comfort. The findings establish similarities between commuters' subjectively determined accessibility and the established objective measures (e.g., travel cost, time, etc.).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100031"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143487852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Viability and impact of existing urban minibus taxi mobility with electric vehicles","authors":"B.G. Pretorius ,&nbsp;J.M. Strauss ,&nbsp;M.J. Booysen","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100042","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100042","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sub-Sahara’s paratransit sector is yet to take off in the electrification of its minibus taxis. More than two thirds of daily commuters are transported by minibus taxis in cities. However, the electrification process is prohibited by multiple factors, such as an already fragile grid network, and an energy scarcity in the region. Planning for eventual electrification is further complicated by the sector’s unique, decentralised, unscheduled, and demand-driven nature. We use the concepts of vehicle-day and fleet-day to quantify the relationship between mobility and electricity demand, which are linked by the charging infrastructure and charging strategies. To investigate the effects of the charging requirements, data from 17 minibus taxis in Stellenbosch, South Africa was used with a bespoke software built to simulate the driving and charging of the taxis. Different charging rates (7.2<!--> <!-->kW, 22<!--> <!-->kW and 50<!--> <!-->kW) were tested as well as having different charging locations, that of the depot and home and a combination of the two. The effectiveness of each scenario is assessed on the success rate of the vehicle-days. A depot charging rate of 22<!--> <!-->kW had a success rate of 55%, with the furthest a vehicle can travel being 200 km. This increases with home charging to a 79% success rate (250 km), and can be further increased with 50<!--> <!-->kW charging and home charging to 86% success rate (280 km). However, home-only charging provides comparable results and should be a consideration in the electric transition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100042"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144203560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatio-temporal assessment of polluting emissions from transport commuting in Kenya: The first step to inform mitigation strategies","authors":"Rafael Arevalo-Ascanio ,&nbsp;Alex Kipkorir Koech","doi":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100056","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aftran.2025.100056","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Transport decarbonization is part of global efforts to combat climate change. Urban growth and the increasing need for commuting contribute to emissions that harm both the environment and public health. In the Global South, commuting operations are predominantly characterized by (in)formal <em>paratransit</em> systems, which rely on outdated, less environmentally efficient vehicles. This paper assesses the emissions of CO₂, NOx, CO, and PM_2.5 exhaust in a congested commuting corridor within the Nairobi metropolitan region to identify where and when mitigation strategies should be prioritized. The emissions calculation methodology follows an activity-based approach, incorporating distance travelled and vehicle operational parameters as a function of travel speed. Due to the lack of formal transport operation data, the study relies on empirical data collection through counting and observation of commuting events along the corridor. The results reveal spatio-temporal dependencies, with higher emission levels observed during peak hours and in areas closer to the city centre. Emissions patterns reflect the intensity of operations, with increased frequency and duration of commuting trips leading to greater environmental impacts. These findings should inform public policy development aimed at reducing pollutant emissions. Similarly, decarbonization strategies, such as vehicle electrification, should focus on the most polluted time windows and corridor segments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100058,"journal":{"name":"African Transport Studies","volume":"3 ","pages":"Article 100056"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144657255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}