NEEDS FOR TRANSPORTATION PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

By

Dr. Didigwu Augustus U.S and Fasina Olajide

Presented To

Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics

Transportation is the act of transporting or the state of being transported; conveyance; often of people, goods, etc, while planning stands as the act of formulating of a course or courses of action, or of drawing up plans or programes for future events or activities. Geographic information system is a survey tool used to capture, store, query, analyze, manage and display geographic information/data (Kang-Tsung Chang, 2002). Geographic information system (GIS) technology has the ability to integrate common data base operations such as query and statistical analysis with unique visualization and geographic analysis. These abilities distinguish GIS from other information systems and make it valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises for explaining events, predicting out comes and planning strategies. The objective of this article is to articulate the success of geographic information system applications in transportation planning. The methodology applied was the administration of questionnaires by stratified sampling to major stake-holders in GIS and transportation technology such as surveyors, traffic warden staff, road safety staff, police, some members of the national union of road transport workers, some staff of the Ministry of Transport (including the vehicle inspection officers), Staff of State Security services (SSS) and transportation planners. Secondary information were also obtained from books, journal articles and conference papers. The use of computer and some software made the research simpler. The results of the observations and analysis show that the centralized traffic control room can be made use of, to effectively manage the traffic. Information about the number of vehicles on each road, where there are jams and alternative roads can be displayed on electronic signboards installed at important traffic road junction. The discussions so far show that the use of GIS for transportation management is ideal and has come to stay universally, and so should be adopted in Nigeria.   
KEYWORDS: Transportation, Management, Geographic Information System, Traffic.

INTRODUCTION

In a broad sense a Geographic Information System (GIS) is an information system specializing in the input, management, analysis and reporting of geographical (spatially related) information. Among the wide range of potential applications of GIS transportation, issues have received a lot of attention. A specific branch of GIS applied to transportation issues, commonly labeled as GIS-T, has emerged.
Geographic Information Systems for Transportation Planning refers to the principles and applications of applying geographic information technologies to solve transportation problems (Didigwu, 2010)
GIS application for transportation planning research can be approached from two different directions. While some research focuses on issues of how GIS can be further developed and enhanced in order to meet the needs of transportation planning applications, other research investigates the questions of how GIS can be used to facilitate and improve transportation studies.
In general, topics related to GIS transportation studies can be grouped into three categories:-

(i) Data representations: How can various components of transport systems be represented in transportation planning?.
(ii) Analysis and Modeling:  How can transport methodologies be used in a GIS transportation?.
(iii) Applications:  What types of applications are particularly suitable for transportation planning?.