NIHTE Suggests Intelligent Transport Systems To Curb Traffic Violations

The Nigerian Institution of Highway and Transportation Engineers (NIHTE) has called on governments to adopt artificial intelligence and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to improve traffic management and reduce road violations across Nigeria.

The Chairman of the NIHTE Ibadan Chapter, Lawal Sulaiman Olalekan, made the call during his inauguration as the fourth chairman of the chapter at the institution’s sixth annual conference in Ibadan. The conference was themed, “Drivers’ Traffic Violations and Their Impact on Highway Performance: Empirical Evidence from AI-Based System in Nigeria.”

Olalekan said AI-powered traffic management could analyse real-time information from cameras, sensors and GPS devices to reduce congestion, predict traffic build-ups and automatically adjust traffic signals.

The conference guest lecturer, Dr Adeolu Odutayo of the Department of Transport Management, Olabisi Onabanjo University, said the limitations of manual enforcement had created gaps in Nigeria’s traffic management system. He called for policies supporting the adoption of AI-based enforcement, alongside multidisciplinary collaboration, reliable databases and safeguards for data privacy.

By Oshuniran Sheriff Ola