Auditory Intelligent Speed Adaptation for Long-Distance Informal Public Transport In South Africa

Abstract

Abstract-Informal transport refers to the collective passenger road transport industry with little or no regulatory control of its operations, usually characterised by unplanned and ad-hoc service delivery. The notoriously dangerous informal transport industry in South Africa -dominated by minibus taxis -has been shown to disregard the posted speed limit on long-distance trips. Not only do they frequently exceed the differentiated speed limit imposed on minibus taxis, but also the speed limit imposed on normal passenger vehicles. This paper evaluates the impact of an auditory Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) intervention, applied at various intensity levels, on the speeding behaviour of this seemingly intransigent mode of transport. The experiment evaluates the behaviour on the R61 between Beaufort West and Aberdeen. We evaluate the speeding distributions, speeding frequencies, speed percentiles, mean speeds, and the statistical relevance of key metrics. We find that the auditory intervention has a clear impact on speeding behaviour, both when applied at an audible level that can be drowned out by a radio, and even greater impact at a loud level. The impact on speeding is significant, with speeding frequency (both time and distance) reducing by over 20 percentage points.

Transport Inequalities and the Adoption of Intelligent Transportation Systems in Africa: A Research Landscape

“…In most cases where driver engagement was required, such as in works that sought to reduce speeding [47], monitor driving behaviours [27,51] or detect drowsiness [61], smart phones (specifically Android) were used. Due to their ubiquity, smart phones have also been used as cost-effective ways of collecting data about road conditions for infrastructure planning [39,53,57].…”

“…The advisory system was deployed on an Android smartphone and incorporated text-to-speech support. A similar auditory solution was proposed in [47] but as an intelligent speed notification system, which repeatedly warned drivers against speeding. In [67], minibuses were proposed as alternatives to GSM for "transporting" data from smart meters to control centers.…”

Auditory intelligent speed adaptation for long–distance informal public transport in South Africa

“…As a result, disaggregate analysis was limited to trips completed each taxi. The dataset used is availabe at [27].…”

Simulating Mobility to Plan for Electric Minibus Taxis in Sub-Saharan Africa's Paratransit

“…Hull et al (2022b) showed that high-frequency mobility data on the order of one sample per second is needed for high-fidelity estimates of electric minibus taxi energy expenditure. Given the scarcity of such data, and the relative abundance of low-frequency mobility data that only captures one sample per minute (Ebot Eno Akpa et al, 2016), it would be invaluable to have simulation models that can simulate high-frequency mobility data from low-frequency data well enough to obtain high-fidelity estimates of energy expenditure. However, underlying assumptions in models and simulation setups may affect the output.…”