THE ROLE OF ICT IN CONTROLLING TRAFFIC CONGESTION.

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The burgeoning cities population is attributed to transport inefficiencies in urban areas. Traffic congestion arises when the demand for road exceeds the capacity of the available infrastructure. It is estimated that traffic inefficiencies cost Nairobi city 50 million shillings daily, which translates to 18.2 billion shillings annually through lost productivity, fuel consumption and environmental pollution (Mungai, 2012). ICT, which involves storage, retrieval, manipulation, and transmission of information electronically, is the basis of modern intelligent transport systems and the ever growing mobile phone technology which are transforming the transport sector. Intelligent traffic management systems have been developed to collect and use real- time traffic data, to detect incidents, predict their impact and suggest appropriate measures to solve the problem. This has been made possible by the use of detective devices such as video cameras, infrared sensors and ultrasonic detectors installed on the roads and parking spaces which collect traffic data. When the data is collected at the detection units, it is relayed to a central data processing unit for analysis and the information communicated to drivers and decision support systems. Although smart traffic management systems are effective and cost saving, in the long run, the cost of implementation remains high for most city governments. It is estimated, installing street line sensors cost about $20 to $30 per sensor per month (Kessler, 2011). The growth of mobile phone technology has provided a cheaper platform for real-time data collection and information sharing through floating car data and crowd sourcing. Floating car data is data derived from a mobile phone stationed in... ... middle of paper ... ...om: http://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/publications/files/Current_Traffic_Congestion_Managemetn_Sydney.pdf:[Accessed 18 March 2014]. Ilan, S. (1985) Telecommunications and Travel Substitution or Modified Mobility, Transport Economics and Policy. Transport and Economics Policy. September, 19(3) pp. 219-235. [Online]. Available from: http://www.bath.ac.uk/e-journals/jtep/pdf/Volume_X1X_No_3_219-235.pdf [Accessed 18 March 2014]. Kessler, S. (2011) ‘How smarter parking technology will reduce traffic congestion‘, Global Innovation Series [Online]. Available at: mashable.com/2011/04/13/smart-parking-tech. [Accessed: 18 March 2014]. Mungai, C. (2012) Unlocking our cities’ horror traffic jam, the IBM way, The East African, 26 May 2012.[Online].Available from: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/...unlock-traffic-jams.../-/index.html‎ [Accessed 18 march 2014].

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