Abstract
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), also known as Smart Transportation, is an infusion of information and communication technologies into transportation. ITS are a key component of smart cities, which have seen rapid global development in the last few decades. This has in turn translated to an increase in the deployment and adoption of ITS, particularly in countries in the Western world. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the developing countries of Africa and Asia, where dilapidated road infrastructure, poorly maintained public/mass transit vehicles and poverty are major concerns. However, the impact of Westernization and “imported technologies” cannot be overlooked; thus, despite the aforementioned challenges, ITS have found their way into African cities. In this paper, a systematic review was performed to determine the state of the art of ITS in Africa. The output of this systematic review was then fed into a hybrid multi-criteria model to analyse the research landscape, identify connections between published works and reveal research gaps and inequalities in African ITS. African peculiarities inhibiting the widespread implementation of ITS were then discussed, followed by the development of a conceptual architecture for an integrated ITS for African cities.
Highlights
Transportation can be defined as the movement of people and things from one place to another
We reveal the status of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in Africa, including the number of articles published in the subject area, country-level progress and the specific types of research on ITS being undertaken in Africa
We develop a hybrid multi-criteria model that does not rely on expert opinions but instead uses features from the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) as input for a Decision Making Trial and Evaluation (DEMATEL) model
Summary
Transportation can be defined as the movement of people and things from one place to another. A seemingly obvious solution to this might be to build new transportation channels, such as constructing new roads, dredging water routes or laying new train tracks. Such infrastructural developments are often expensive, take months or years to complete and might not be possible in old and fully built cities; the effective management of existing structures might be the only option. This is where Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) come in. ITS provide the unique opportunity to add functionalities to existing transport infrastructure
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