MIRG-ICAIR Conference

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Browsing MIRG-ICAIR Conference by Author "Adekanmbi,O"

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    Open Access
    Geo-Visualization of Road Accident and Traffic Congestion Hotspots for Real-Time Traffic Optimization, Mobility Planning, and Commuters’ Safety Using Traffic Reported Social Media Posts
    (MIRG, 2024-10-28) Lawal, O.; Adekanmbi,O; Soronnadi, A.; Akanji, D.
    Amidst the bustling economic hub of Nigeria, known as Lagos, traffic congestion remains a persistent challenge that plagues the city, impeding the economy, health, and safety of its residents. Professionals spend a staggering 90% of their work time navigating traffic, resulting in stress and anxiety. Some are robbed in the process, even in broad daylight. To address this problem, this work is done to help government agencies optimize traffic management and provide road users with the necessary information to navigate the city safely and efficiently and make informed decisions about which routes to take. In this study, we utilized LASTMA's social media tweets to analyse traffic patterns in Lagos, revealing insights on congestion and road safety. Rigorous data preprocessing and machine learning tools such as TfidfVectorizer aided sentiment analysis, achieving 88.9% accuracy with logistic regression outperforming other models. We also finetuned a name entity recognition (NER) model using Spacy to identify and capture location and road entities within the tweets. Findings highlighted breakdowns near sea ports and major routes (e.g., Orile, Bonny Camp, Apapa wharf) and accidentprone areas like the Third Mainland Bridge and Obalende Bridge. With this analysis, government agencies can develop traffic management strategies that prioritize safety and efficiency, such as rerouting traffic away from congested areas or implementing safety measures at accident-prone or traffic robbery-prone locations. Furthermore, traffic-free routes can be provided in real-time to commuters based on their location. This work has the potential to reduce traffic congestion and improve road safety, leading to economic and health benefits for Lagos residents. The results of this research not only have practical implications for the city but can also be extended to other urban areas that have traffic agencies and are also facing similar challenges.