Perception Based Determinants of Mobility Dilemma in Ilorin Metropolis

Abstract

Usually, planning proceeds from issue identification and evaluation, directed at addressing recognized problems. As straightforward as it sounds, this sometimes can be difficult to achieve in settings where outdated master plans, continuous piecemeal and poorly regulated development are the order of the day. Even worse is the near total lack of baseline data upon which rational decisions about issues, such as mobility can be premised. Resulting into a scenario where holistic evaluations of city mobility needs and requirements are sometimes entirely jeopardized, leaving city managers with very little information to work with. The consequence is a distress filled mobility environment, from which determinants of dilemma may be tacitly admitted, but are generally not properly determined. This work uses perception of travelers' to rank and classify effect of contextually relevant mobility influencing attributes of Ilorin metropolis, as bases for isolating determinants of mobility dilemma in the city. The approach is targeted at providing city managers with a simplistic alternative way of evaluating needs, based upon user identified preferences, such that determinants of mobility dilemma become implicit enough to be utilized for decision making and planning. The work involved a survey of randomly selected respondents' from officially designated spatial subunits of Ilorin metropolis. It became apparent that attributes of public modes, development characteristics, as well as other operational, economic and safety attributions of the city's mobility environment were influencing perception of mobility by respondents' negatively, mainly as an offshoot of inadequate planning and regulation enforcement in the city. It is suggested that, parsimonious techniques such as utilized in this work, be employed in bridging the gap between comprehensive plans, where wherewithal is lacking.

A statistical approach for studying urban human dynamics

“…In recent years, the concept of smart cities has been extensively studied to address the development of methodologies based on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve the citizens' quality of life in a sustainable development framework (Steenbruggen et al, 2015;Pan et al, 2013a;Bakci et al, 2012;Chourabi et al, 2012). However, it is common that citizens have a negative perception regarding the dynamics of the cities (Shittu et al, 2015;Enemark and Kneeshaw, 2013;Pressl and Köllinger, 2012). In this sense, Buscher et al (2014) mention that a constraint for the cities is related to the population growth because it raises the demands for efficient flows of people in an environment with limited physical infrastructure and requires for adequate management of systems to avoid congested and unpleasant situations for the users.…”