Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and The Way Forward
Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and The Way Forward
Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and The Way Forward
Tezazu Bireda(&)
1 Introduction
Transportation of humans and goods have been playing important roles in people’s
daily lives and socioeconomic activities since civilization first formed and needed new
means of reaching destinations [1]. Vehicular transportation eased and extended the
living, working and entertainment environment people could reach in quicker, con-
venient and comfortable manner.
The mass production and affordability of vehicles resulted in a new era of modern
life and as a consequence and perpetual reciprocation paved ways for modern town
planning for efficient multifaceted services; construction of standardized road network
infrastructure; use of essential standard traffic rules and signs; use of traffic control
signalling systems; deployment of trained human power to drive, maintain, manage,
monitor, control and enact laws; etc. all for the safe, cost effective, comfortable and
smooth utilization of the vehicular transportation system.
Since the start of private, public and commercial transportation application of
vehicles in late 19th century, the total world vehicle population in 2010 exceeded 1.015
billion 24 years after reaching 500 million in 1986 [2]. In 2011, the Organization for
© ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2018
F. Mekuria et al. (Eds.): ICT4DA 2017, LNICST 244, pp. 34–45, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95153-9_4
Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and the Way Forward 35
Fig. 1. Deaths by road user category [3] Fig. 2. Trends in road traffic deaths [3]
Organized data on traffic related deaths in Ethiopia in 2007 are depicted in Figs. 1
and 2 [3]. Figure 1 shows pedestrians are most victimized and Fig. 2 indicates the trend
which is steadily increasing.
Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and the Way Forward 37
• 1.9 million road deaths annually worldwide by 2020, costing the world an estimated
$100 billion each year.
• Close to 9,000 Megatons of global CO2 emissions from transport vehicles will
occur by 2030. This contributes significantly to climate change. Combined with
other emissions, it would burden millions of people with health problems through
air, water, soil and noise pollution; and
• 30% increase of traffic congestion by 2025 in some countries, costing society
billions in fuel and overall economic penalties through time lost.
It could also be predicted that, considering the current level of development of the
underdeveloped nations, Ethiopia would suffer in its part even worse than the summary
implies.
• The signalling systems at major road junctions are not automatically synchronized.
This would bring congestion and its triggered problems.
• The conventional system has no automatic traffic related data detection and logging
system that might be used to improve performance.
control systems to their best status. Second is optimization of mobility and road uti-
lization. This can be done through tuning of traffic control parameters, mainly sig-
nalling phase time durations of all traffic control signalling systems in the road network.
Third, improving the synchronization of the various traffic control signalling systems at
arterial roads may also be considered. The above measures would, however, have limits
beyond which it becomes cost ineffective for further improvement. It may not at all
even improve the mobility capacity of the road network.
The next higher measure in the conventional sense requires the expansion of road
network infrastructure and allocation of land resource. These, however, are expensive.
Furthermore, the more land is used for roads, the more congested towns become. Still
worse is the usually observed lagging of the infrastructure deployment behind the
increase rate of vehicles exacerbate the consequences of congestion. This leads natu-
rally to a paradigm shift into the modern method called ITS, discussed next.
ITS contributes to all major transport policy objectives set by a nation. Many ITS
applications are aimed at either optimizing the available supply of road infrastructure or
reducing demand for it. The result of ITS technology is a more efficient and reliable
road transport network that operates with a minimized effect on the environment. ITS
also enables in both preventing accidents and mitigating their impacts.
A simplified description of the procedural steps in most ITS applications is [9]:
• Data collection: ITS is capable of capturing a range of roadway information from
the number of vehicles passing a certain point. ITS can track the position of vehicles
through, say, mobile phone or satellite.
• Data transfer, processing and analysis: ITS can communicate the data to central
units. There, the data is aggregated and transformed into information used to
determine future actions.
• Informed decision-making: The processed data can be applied in a number of
ways to ensure the efficient operation of road networks. For e.g., a road operator
may use ITS data for highway management; or a road user may alter his route from
updated traffic data.
• Enables reduced road network needed than with conventional traffic control solu-
tions for the same required mobility, safety, and energy efficiency. A fundamental
debate exists between perceived needs to increase road supply and the increases in
traffic flows obtainable by using existing capacities more intelligently [9].
• Drivers and passengers can get timely information on board of vehicles or from
variable message boards as to which route to take that may be shorter and clearer.
• Easy detection and pinpointing of emergency.
• ITS platform enables communication of vehicles that help avoid accidents.
• Enables in-motion toll payment and weighting system that avoids stoppages.
• Getting information on nearest car parking plots.
• Integrated corridor management will entail highways, arterial roads and transit
systems within a corridor to optimize people throughput within the corridor [9].
• ITS paves the way for “smart transport system” in which vehicles may be computer
driven to move people and goods safer, faster and reliably.
Generally, successful ITS applications are to be found wherever there is significant
road traffic. Precise priorities depend upon local circumstances, reflecting the structure
of cities, relative distances, traffic densities and the balance of transport modes. All
applications share common aims: increased safety, reduced emissions and improved
traffic flows [9].
contextualize ITS technologies off the shelf. A final reason might be lack of proven
universal business model to introduce ITS in the global market in full gear.
However, the ever-increasing problems not properly and intelligently handled by
conventional solutions, is pushing many nations to migrate to ITS. This is witnessed by
some nations whatever the cost but surely with un-matching benefits. The ubiquities
and increased performance with reduced cost of the development environment for ITS
is attracting nations to decide the deployment of ITS. Furthermore, another compelling
condition to harness ITS is due to the advancement of modern vehicles. Most modern
vehicles are coming with many sensors used to monitor, diagnose and guide each
internal and external functioning of the vehicle. This enables them to be operated more
easily, safely and reliably as well as maintained easily. These vehicles can be made to
communicate among each other in V2V mode and with the road side infrastructure in
V2I mode. This enables them to avoid collisions while at the same time operate at the
maximum speed possible.
The built-in or the easy embedding of navigation, guidance, security and antitheft
systems in them enables these cars to be easily controlled by human drivers and/or
remote computer. The technology also helps easily pinpoint the exact time and location
of incidents which is a requirement for smart transport system. Even old model cars can
also use the blessings of ITS by adding into them the basic required hardware and
software. A qualitative comparison of conventional and ITS based traffic signal control
is tabulated below as extracted from observations in [11, 12] (Table 1).
The analyses described previously imply that modern mobility traffic control and
management solutions for vehicular transportation system that use ITS would be more
effective than the conventional. It is so, not only for the developed nations but also for
Ethiopia.
There are a number of reasons for the need of introduction of ITS in Addis Ababa
and other major cities of Ethiopia at the earliest possible. First, Ethiopia is currently a
low income country whose 81% population still live in rural areas. Its road network and
vehicle density can be said to be in their primitive stages. Addis Ababa and the other
cities are currently being renovated and expanded almost anew with improved city
master plans. This means that, a lot more road network would be constructed and this
makes the process to consider ITS now or in the earliest possible.
Second, Ethiopia has about only half a million number of vehicles. This is a very
small number compared with even other underdeveloped nations and only very few of
them are modern. All newly imported and locally assembled brand new vehicles are
increasing. Most of them are also expected to be modern with some ITS ready features
so that they can be easily deployed in an ITS based control.
Third, there are already some resources and few expertise available in Ethiopia that
serve as fertile ground. This enables to embark, develop and implement ITS which
include:
• presence and expansive coverage of legacy to Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile
communication network
• existing conventional traffic signals that can possibly be integrated to the ITS
system to be introduced
• presence of some experience with the Addis Ababa to Adama toll based express
way corridor that is using some features of ITS
• the new Modjo-Hawassa express way being constructed is planned to have ITS
elements including electronic toll collection (ETC) and CCTV systems
• existence of few expertise knowledge in ITS as well as in operating and utilizing
this express way
• the recently deployed Light Rail Transit system with its own modern traffic control
system and that can be integrated with the existing vehicular system.
Thus, rather than sticking to the relatively ineffective conventional way of mobility
traffic control, it is recommended that ITS be incorporated in the master plans of Addis
Ababa and other major cities. Their implementation can then be introduced at the early
stage and in parallel with the execution of the master plans. It is expected that this
would help optimize the utilization of the existing and newly introduced road networks
than with conventional approach. It would also help curb accidents and pollution.
Intelligent Transport System in Ethiopia: Status and the Way Forward 45
6 Conclusion
In Sect. 5, it has been attempted to justify the better merits of ITS over that of the
conventional for mobility traffic control and management systems. Thus, if ITS is
implemented in Ethiopia, as is done in many developed and few developing nations
with reported successes of reduced accidents, reduced incident response times, reduced
travel times, reduced emissions, reduced vehicle operating costs, increased traffic
speeds, and increased on-time transit performance [9], then it would also do the same
for Ethiopia.
This paper therefore strongly recommends that the issue of introduction of ITS be
started in Ethiopia at the earliest possible. It is also proposed that discussion be held by
all stakeholders through public- private-partnership approach. In this regards, estab-
lishment of a center of excellence on ITS composed of relevant disciplines and
stakeholders might be necessary. This would help to fully understand, research, adapt
and/or adopt its application to the Ethiopian context to exploit all benefits of ITS.
References
1. Huang, C.M., Chen, Y.S.: Telematics Communication Technologies and Vehicular
Networks: Wireless Architectures and Applications. Information Science Reference, IGI
Global, Hershey (2010)
2. World Vehicle Population Tops 1 Billion Units. http://wardsauto.com/ar/world_vehicle_
population_110815
3. Violence and Injury Prevention: Country Profiles. Ethiopia. http://www.who.int/violence_
injury_prevention/road_safety_status/country_profiles/en/
4. Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013: Supporting a Decade of Action. World Health
Organization, Geneva, Switzerland (2013)
5. Number of Cars Worldwide Surpasses 1 Billion; Can the World Handle this Many Wheels?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/0823/car-population_n_934291.html
6. World Proven Reserves of Oil and Natural Gas, Most Recent Estimates, U.S. Energy
Information Administration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources. Acces-
sed 26 Mar 2015
7. Africa’s Road Safety Challenges, International Road Federation (IRF), Addis Fortune, vol.
15, no. 776, 15 March 2015
8. The International Road Federation Vienna Manifesto on ITS: Smart Transport Policies for
Sustainable Mobility. IRF, Geneva (2012)
9. IRF Bulletin Special Edition: Intelligent Transport Systems. International Road Federation
(2008)
10. Toyota Intelligent Transport System. Toyota, UK (2012). https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=uwle3csyDac
11. Kotwal, A.R., Lee, S.J., Kim, Y.J.: Traffic signal systems: a review of current technology in
the United States. Sci. Technol. 3(1), 33–41 (2013). https://doi.org/10.5923/j.scit.20130301.
04
12. George, G.: Adaptive signal control technology: state of practice. Int. J. Sci. Res. Dev.
(2016)