EVALUATION OF EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF PEDESTRIAN FACILITIES AND SAFETY IN OSOGBO, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the efficiency and effectiveness of pedestrian facilities and safety of pedestrians in Osogbo, Nigeria using the Osogbo-Ikirun expressway as a case study. The objectives are to; identify the available pedestrian facilities by type, examine the locational attributes of pedestrian facilities, evaluate the procedures for siting pedestrian facilities, examine the level of utilization, and evaluate the incidences associated with violation of the use of pedestrian facilities in Osogbo. The Osogbo segment of the highway was of interest since Osogbo is the Capital city of Osun State with obvious commercial activities going on at both sides of the busy dual carriage expressway. Key sections of the highway with high pedestrian crossing traffic were identified by direct observation, traffic count of pedestrians at the selected sections were gotten using manual counting. The number of available pedestrian facilities and the procedure to site these facilities were gotten from the Highway Department, Ministry of Works, Osun State Government Secretariat, Osogbo. 400 copies of questionnaire were administered to pedestrians to have their opinion about the facilities. Annual accident statistics was gotten from the Divisional Police Headquarters, Dugbe, Osogbo from 2013-2019. It showed the number of pedestrians involved in accident as 71, 78, 46, 44, 33, 31 and 13 respectively. Year 2014 has the highest number of pedestrians, 78, involved in accidents and ever since then, number of pedestrians involved in accident reduced drastically. The Correlation analysis showed there is a weak negative relationship between number of usage of the facilities and number of pedestrians involved in accident with correlation value -0.319 at 0.048 significant level 0.05 This implies that the higher the number of pedestrians involved in accident, the lower the number of usage of the pedestrian facilities and the lower the number of pedestrians involved in accident, the higher the number of usage of the pedestrian facilities. This showed that the people of Osogbo envisaged that it is safe to use the pedestrian facilities so as not to involve in road crashes. An assessment of Pedestrian safety considerations at these locations was made and they were found to be reasonably acceptable but the government should do more to cater for the pedestrians. It was recommended that Nigerian Government at all levels, needs to overcome these decades of street and road construction projects that have routinely ignored the provision of facilities that would resolve pedestrian related issues on our highways.