Faculty of Engineering, Design and Technology

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11951/933

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Browsing Faculty of Engineering, Design and Technology by Author "Booysen, M.J."

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    Mapping the Informal Public Transport Network in Kampala With Smartphones: Making Sense of an Organically Evolved Chaotic System in an Emerging City in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (35th Southern African Transport Conference, 2016) Ndibatya, Innocent; Booysen, M.J.; Coetzee, J
    In cities in the emerging world, public transport networks are governed by a large number of agents, each with their own agendas, priorities, incentives and resources, interacting nonlinearly through complex feedback loops. The transport system in these cities have developed into a semi-chaotic self-organizing structure with seemingly unpredictable behaviour to an outside observer. This is due to user agent actions by passengers, independent determination of operating plans and practices by transport operators, and a managing authority exhibiting a lack of will (both political and institutional), to implement adequate control measures to provide regulation and management of these systems. Based on the problems that face transport systems in developing cities and public transport in particular, this paper reports on an attempt to understand the supply of public transport in the Kampala area in a novel manner. We describe a mapping approach using a custom-developed smartphone application which was used to quickly and accurately capture informal transport systems for analysis and study of urban mobility where no dependable data was currently available. Secondly, based on the data created by the study project, to provide insights into the routes, operations, and characteristics of the minibus taxi network which convey the majority of Kampala’s travelers. Our hypothesis is that by understanding the network in geospatial terms, we will be able to create benefits for all role-players and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the supply of public transport to more closely match the demand for public transport in an emerging world city.
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    Modelling of Inter-stop Minibus Taxi Movements: Using Machine Learning and Network Theory
    (1st International conference on the use of Mobile ICT in Africa, 2014) Ndibatya, Innocent; Booysen, M.J.
    Minibus taxis provide affordable alternative transport for the majority of urban working population in Sub-Saharan Africa. Often, these taxis do not follow predefined routes in their endeavours to look for passengers. Frequently, they stop by roadsides to pick up passengers and sometimes go off the main route in an attempt to fill the taxi with passengers to make the trip profitable. In addition, the destinations are changed from time to time depending on the driver. This uncoordinated movement creates a web of confusion to would-be passengers. The key aspects that are not clear to the passengers include; where to get a taxi, the waiting time and the travel time to the destination. These conditions leave taxi passengers at a very big disadvantage. In this research, we applied the concepts of machine learning and network theory to model the movements of taxis between stops. The model can be used to compute the waiting times at the stops and the travel times to a specified destination. Twelve minibus taxis were tracked for 6 months. Density-based clustering was used to discover the formal and informal taxi stops, which were modelled into a flow network with the significant stops as nodes and the frequency of departures between nodes as edges representing the strength of connectivity. A data driven model was developed. From the model, we can predict the time a passenger will have to wait at a stop in order to get a taxi and the trip duration
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    Transforming Paratransit in Africa's Congested Cities: An ICT- Enabled Integrated Demand Responsive Transport (iDRT) Approach
    (IST-Africa 2020 Conference Proceedings Miriam Cunningham and Paul Cunningham (Eds) IST-Africa Institute and IIMC, 2020) Ndibatya, Innocent; Booysen, M.J.
    Developing cities in Africa and the Global South are grappling with the problem of inadequate public transport provision. The informal privately-run paratransit system consisting of mini- and micro-buses, shared taxis (jitneys), motorcycle and bicycle taxis has seen substantial growth since the early nineties. This loosely-regulated transport system is associated with many challenges that include congestion, high crash rates, high levels of noise and air pollution. In this paper we describe the origin and current status of this structurally unique paratransit system. We then reviewed the transport master plans of four East African cities (Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Kigali, and Nairobi) and identify remaining planning gaps. We found that all the four cities reviewed lacked satisfactory plans for multi-modal public transport integration, demand responsiveness, and ICT integration which are essential to every modern and efficient public transport system. We then proposed a conceptual organised public transport system (ICT-enabled iDRT). We described how it could be adapted for a highly congested city like Kampala in order transform its existing chaotic paratransit system into an efficient public transport system that could make commuters happier and safer, reduce costs and considerably reduce pollution