An Interoperability Mobile Application for Location and Travel Planning Services in Ghana

Abstract

Mobility and access to social, economic, and cultural opportunities are facilitated by the availability of practical location data. Practical location data are scarce in Ghana and most of Sub-Sahara Africa where cities are typically characterized by informal settlements and a lack of standard address system. The problem is compounded by limited use of indigenous languages for travel services even though the majority of the population lacks familiarity with English. This study attempts to address these issues by developing a mobile app which takes advantage of local location data integrated into OpenStreetMap through Mapbox to provide location and travel planning services in English and indigenous Akan language The developed mobile app called ‘myTroski’ provides key capabilities to describe landmark information, find nearby landmarks, search and find, travel routing and planning, GPS assisted map use, and text and audio assisted navigation. The study shows the formalizing and modernizing location data from paratransit Trotro service and landmarks to mainstream local address systems.