Methodology and trends for an intelligent transport system in developing countries
Introduction
The rapid growing of the world population poses a problem of mobility for road users. Vehicle traffic involves regulating traffic in road networks. It reduces congestion, reduces traffic accidents, and improves traffic flow and especially the rational use of road resources. The highway code, priority rules, traffic signs, traffic lights and policemen traffic have contributed to lay the foundation of traffic regulation. Technological advances in the field of telecommunication have led to the birth of the intelligent transport system. There are computerized systems that offer multiple applications to transport systems based on sophisticated telecommunication infrastructures such as sensors, camera and smart phone. These systems also offer several advantages [1]: increases road safety, evaluates the environmental pollution, evaluates traffic flow and disseminate information. These systems include vehicular ad hoc network that allow communication between vehicles, and between vehicle and another infrastructures like Road Side Unit (RSU). RSU are the infrastructure that are deployed on the road for the improvement of communication between vehicles. They also increase the overall coverage of a vehicular network. A number of developed countries use such systems. What about the implementation of such systems in developing countries?
Transportation systems in developing countries are confronted with several realities. We have the lack of quality road infrastructure: most of these countries do not have good road infrastructures. This means that any type of vehicle travels on the same tracks. The lack of telecommunication infrastructures is another problem in these countries. The infrastructures in these areas do not allow an adequate deployment of communication between entities that constitute the road transport system. We also have the absence of an effective system for monitoring activities on the road network.
Furthermore, there is a high rate of traffic accidents in these countries especially on roads that connect cities. Bezabeh et al. [2] of the Department of Transport and ICT of the African Development Bank presented statistics on accidents in Africa. Traffic accidents are a growing problem in the continent and are the fourth leading cause of death for people aged 5–44 years. 64% of these countries have adopted a road safety policy and 76% have set up a body devoted exclusively to the coordination of road safety activities. These organizations have no powers, no capacity, no policies to improve the situation. In Africa the percentage of death caused by road accidents is 24.1% per 100.000 inhabitants in 2010 [3]. The Cameroonian National Institute of Statistics [4] reported that, 3.503 traffic accidents occurred in 2010. Otou [5] specifies that 1.450 people were killed in 2012 following a traffic accident in Cameroon and that 70% of accidents occur on the Douala-Yaounde, Yaounde-Bafoussam and Bafoussam-Douala interurban roads. These roads constitute what is called “the triangle of death” and causes a loss of about 50 billion a year. The above creates an interest in modeling a road network monitoring system of inter-urban transport in the developing countries: to reduce traffic accidents in these countries, to make reasonable use of the roads therein and to monitor developments in a road network.
It would be beneficial to fall with the macroscopic models. These last years, with the introduction of new optimization methods, research in the field aims at improving the parameters taken into account the definition of regulatory models. Tlig [6] shows the factors that play to improve road traffic: the need of users (by better distributing residential, commercial, industrial, etc.); the networks: adding roads or lanes on some roads, but with strong implications in terms of financial costs, environmental (noise, pollution, visual impairment); the disposition of traffic signal; the control (operating rules) of active/dynamic signals (traffic lights) and control (behavior) of vehicles.
In the context of developing countries like, Cameroon we propose a model of a road network monitoring system of inter-urban transport that would amount to many points. We explore the feasibility of implementing Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in this context: given that ITS hence offered tools to manage transport systems, their effectiveness must be studied in our study context in order to see what can be useful in setting up the model to be proposed. The proposition of a model of transport networks in this context is also useful. In fact, the road networks in these countries are generally not modeled because they are permanently disturbed (refection, traffic accidents, poor roads, climatic events), they are not meshed since in most cases it is difficult to propose an alternative to road users in the event of interruptions especially in the context of inter-urban transport. This monitoring model would be equipped with a dynamic regulation system to improve the traffic flow and a communication system between the entities that compose it so as to limit congestion and disturbances in the network. The insertion of a decision-making system to sanction the users who do not respect the laws on one hand and to contribute to the different evaluations that will be interesting on the other hand.
The aim of this paper is to present the methods (or models) of regulating the traffic of arteries and intersections, the methods of regulation of the road traffic in urban area as well as the optimization techniques that they use. Then, in the context of the inter-urban road networks of the developing countries, where there is almost no regulation standard, with roads where circulating all types of vehicles (motorcycles, bicycles, truck merchandise, timber trucks, etc.), we propose comparative tables of the previous methods. The purpose of these comparisons was to research one (or more) methods that can enable us to arrive at a model of surveillance of the inter-urban road network that would reduce congestion and accidents in these networks taking into account the level of technological development and the level of road infrastructure in these countries. They help us for the improvement of the understanding of these methods. Finally, at the end of these comparisons, we propose a methodology for monitoring the inter-urban transport network of the developing countries.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we present the ITS. This part presents the functioning of these transport system, the opportunities that they bring and the problems of their deployment in developing countries. In Section 3, we review some regulation models of urban traffic, and a summary table of these models is proposed. The goal here is to see if the opportunities offered by these models can help to solve the problem in our study context. Section 4 examines models as well as methods of urban transport networks. It comes to a review of existing transport networks models to see which one (or those) we can adopt in our study context. As for Section 5, we propose the methodology that we would use to realize the model we intend to propose. Finally, Section 6 shows the conclusion and future direction of our research.
Section snippets
Intelligent transport system
ITS refer to the application of information and communication technologies for the management of problems in conventional transport systems. They use innovative technologies in these areas to improve safety, effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility and sustainability of the transport network without increasing the capacity of the concerned transmission network.
Road traffic regulation model
O’Neill [22], at a forum organized by the World Bank, presented the deficiencies observed in transport systems in developing countries: the lack of highway, the lack of telecommunications infrastructure to develop intelligent transport system, the lack of management planning systems in transport systems, the insufficient public transport regulatory services. These shortcomings clearly justify why it is difficult to implement intelligent transport systems in developing countries. Certainly, in
Methods of modeling urban transport network
Modeling a traffic surveillance system in interurban road transport network suggests a model whose main objectives are: to maximize the satisfaction of road users by allowing them to reduce their journey times, to define a decision support system to manage all the disturbances that can be observed in the process of regulation of inter-urban road traffic, to establish a communication system that is adapted to the model where the actors involved in the regulation process will communicate easily
Methodology for modeling a traffic monitoring system for inter-urban road transport networks in developing countries
Compared to some existing models in the literature, our proposal is a distributed system that guarantees a flexibility and an autonomy in the proposed modules. In these modules, problems are addressed with some optimization schemes. To solve these optimization problems related with intelligent transportation system, we adopted autonomic computing that is an emerging concept in Computing. Therefore, to be useful in the context of developing countries, our proposal a fourfold paradigm:
Conclusion
As a result of this work, road safety remains a serious problem in developing countries like Cameroon where there are many deaths due to road accidents, especially in inter-urban transport networks. There are a number of reasons for these shortcomings, including: the lack of adequate road infrastructure; the lack of telecommunications infrastructure necessary for the deployment of intelligent transport systems as encountered in developed countries. Existing models of road traffic regulation
Acknowledgements
We like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable remarks that helped us in better improving the content and presentation of the paper.
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2022, Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information SciencesCitation Excerpt :The proposed architecture has sophisticated tools and technologies for poor countries (web application’s or SMS, GPS or cell phones, IR sensors, Internet connectivity, WiFi, LED board, Motion sensors and Radar gun) (Rubin et al., 2019; Younes and Boukerche, 2015). Moreover, a methodology for the implementation of an ITS for monitoring the inter-urban road network that takes into account the lack of financial resources observed in these countries and using the available ICTs has been introduced by Mfenjou et al. (2018). Their methodology is based on three large modules: the first is for the management of control points, the second for the detection and diffusion of disturbances and the last for the dynamic route planning.