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Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment

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    Evaluating the current state of pedestrian facilities in peri-urban and urban areas : a case study of Pietermaritzburg City
    (Bentham Science Publishers Ltd., 2024-04-26) Maseko, Wealthy Tsembile; Adedeji, Jacob Adedayo; Bashingi, Ndakhona; Honiball, James
    Background Pedestrian infrastructure is pivotal for advancing the movement of nonmotorized road users and plays a transformative role in transitioning toward sustainable transportation, especially in rural territories influenced by urban dynamics and interconnected by daily commuter flows. Both walking and cycling stand out as paramount sustainable transport means, offering substantial health and environmental benefits, including reduced noise and air pollution. Multiple factors, such as convenience, safety, accessibility, service cost, flexibility, and the quality of pedestrian pathways, shape individuals' propensity to walk. Notably, in peri-urban contexts, the cost of service becomes a significant determinant, as a notable proportion of the population earns minimal wages or faces unemployment. Objective This study sought to examine the current state of pedestrian walkways within Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas, through which the accessibility, availability, and quality of these facilities were assessed. The study has suggested possible solutions to address the challenges faced by pedestrians. Methods By conducting semi-structured interviews and leveraging ArcGIS mapping utilities, this research has delineated the existing scenario and offered an initial redesign tailored to pedestrian requirements. Results The data have starkly revealed pervasive inadequacies in the existing pedestrian infrastructure. The functionality and safety of current amenities have been manifestly undermined by these shortcomings. The continuing use of these dilapidated facilities may pose alarming threats not only to pedestrians, but also to other road users.
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    Inclusivity of ICT based solutions to public transportation problems : challenges and opportunities for Bloemfontein
    (The Road Association of Serbia Via-vita, 2023-09-22) Bashingi, Ndakhona; Adedeji, Jacob Adedayo; Kumar Das, Dillip; Mostafa Hassan Mostafa, Mohammed
    Promoting information and communication technologies as mobility and transportation accessibility solutions in efforts to achieve sustainable transportation excludes socioeconomic vulnerability. ICT-related efforts do not meet the mobility and accessibility needs of every single group in society, resulting in socioeconomic exclusion for specific groups of people. Social exclusion disadvantages vulnerable social groups in society's mobility, while limited mobility reduces access to activities for disadvantaged groups; travel for job hunting, education, work, and health facilities further increases these groups' physical isolation. The need to travel for activities, services, and basic goods for human consumption such as food, water, and medication must be addressed by developing inclusive transportation systems. Through tele-activities, e-payments, security and surveillance, among other components adaptable to travel and mobility, technological solutions have been at the forefront of prescriptions to transportation problems. However, they remain inaccessible to some of society. The study investigates whether inclusive, sustainable public transportation can be fully realized in developing countries by utilizing technology-based travel behavior solutions. It also investigates the effectiveness of ICT solutions to travel, mobility, and accessibility issues in a South African city with a relatively traditional public transportation system. The study considers socioeconomic travel processes as well as travel behavior constructs to inclusivity in order to weigh the prospects of equitable provision of ICT-enabled public transportation services in the developing world. This study discovered that travelers have smartphone access; however, the purposes of smartphones are not directly related to travel and transportation. Furthermore, public transportation service providers do not have an online presence. Overall, for ICT-enabled public transportation to thrive in developing countries, accessible technologies such as calls and SMS that do not require internet access must be considered.
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    A study on indirect tensile strength for the determination of resilient modulus of warm mix asphalt
    (Elsevier BV, 2023) Kamdem, Ronald Fabrice Pouokam; Adedeji, Jacob Adedayo; Mostafa, Mohamed M. Hassan
    The advent of Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) incorporating Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) as a long-term solution to partially or totally participate in remediating the problem of global warming and the regression of environmental resources has been expanding and gaining interest throughout the world. The WMA-RAP technology created as an improved WMA technology has shown to possess mechanical properties closely similar to Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). Though searching for environmentally sustainable asphalt technologies have become vital, the quest to construct economically sustainable highways cannot be neglected. The dynamic modulus tests (DMT) is among the most accurate yet expensive laboratory tests performed to determine the resilient modulus of asphalt mixes. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the resilient modulus of asphalt mixes (WMA-RAP and HMA) through both the indirect tensile strength (ITS) and the correlation formula method (CFM) and compares them against the dynamic modulus tests method (DMTM). Furthermore, this study utilises the resilient modulus found through CFM and DMTM to predict and compare the mechanical performances of asphalt pavement systems. Finite Element Modelling (FEM) and Linear Elastic Analysis (LEA) were used to modelling and analysing the mechanical behaviour of pavement systems. Both the WMA15% RAP and WMA30% RAP samples were mixed with 50/70 grade bitumen modified with Sasobit additive. The HMA samples on the other hand were mixed with non-modified 50/70 grade bitumen. Findings show that the resilient moduli of HMA and WMA-RAP mixes obtained through CFM is 77% close to the DMTM. In addition, the HMA and the WMA-RAP pavements with CFM and DMTM resilient moduli also show very close mechanical performance. This signifies that the CFM can be used as a reliable and cost effective alternative method to determine the resilient modulus of asphalt mixes.
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    Machine learning for road traffic accident improvement and environmental resource management in the transportation sector
    (MDPI AG, 2023-02) Megnidio-Tchoukouegno, Mireille; Adedeji, Jacob Adedayo
    Despite the measures put in place in different countries, road traffic fatalities are still considered one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Thus, the reduction of traffic fatalities or accidents is one of the contributing factors to attaining sustainability goals. Different factors such as the geometric structure of the road, a non-signalized road network, the mechanical failure of vehicles, inexperienced drivers, a lack of communication skills, distraction and the visual or cognitive impairment of road users have led to this increase in traffic accidents. These factors can be categorized under four headings that are: human, road, vehicle factors and environmental road conditions. The advent of machine learning algorithms is of great importance in analysing the data, extracting hidden patterns, predicting the severity level of accidents and summarizing the information in a useful format. In this study, three machine learning algorithms for classification, such as Decision Tree, LightGBM and XGBoost, were used to model the accuracy of road traffic accidents in the UK for the year 2020 using their default and hyper-tuning parameters. The results show that the high performance of the Decision Tree algorithm with default parameters can predict traffic accident severity and provide reference to the critical variables that need to be monitored to reduce accidents on the roads. This study suggests that preventative strategies such as regular vehicle technical inspection, traffic policy strengthening and the redesign of vehicle protective equipment be implemented to reduce the severity of road accidents caused by vehicle characteristics.