Sulaiman YUNUS, DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, BAYERO UNIVERSITY KANO, NIGERIA, Nigeria
Increase in occurrence of road traffic accidents in Kano metropolis have resulted into continuous loss of lives, injuries and increased people’s exposure to risk. This study examined road traffic accidents emergency response within Kano metropolis with a view to establishing synergy between accident spots, EHCF, and ambulances for efficient emergency response. GPS surveying was conducted to obtain the location and attributes of the major identified accident spots along the junctions of the highways, the 2 existing ambulances (KSFS and FRSC) and the major EHCF. Road traffic data (vector format), categories and other attributes were obtained. Network analysis was used to run closest facility, shortest route and location-allocation analyses. Closest ambulance facility analysis shows that it takes FRSC ambulance about 9.41 minutes to reach to accident spot 18 (Maiduguri Road, after NNPC), and 7.52 minutes to travel to AKTH as the closest EHCF. On the other hand, it takes the same ambulance about 3 times the time taken to spot 18 and 4 times the time taken to AKTH to reach to Court road incident spot (spot 16) and IRPH as the closest EHCF. However, the analysis of closest EHCF from accident spots revealed that it takes less than one minute to travel from accident spots 13, 14 and 15 to IRPH as the closest EHCF. Equally, similar time is taken to travel from incident spots 20 and 23 to Sir Sunusi and MMS hospitals respectively. Location-allocation analysis identified eight new locations based on maximum of minutes impedance cutoff from all directions towards the incidents spots. It is concluded that the prevailing road traffic accident emergency response system within the metropolis is inefficient due to many factors among which is inadequacy of ambulances. The study recommends that more ambulances should be positioned especially along the highways and in proximity to accident spots in order to fasten emergency response so as to save more lives of the affected victims.
Mots clés : Road Traffic Accidents|Network Analysis|Closest Facility Analysis|Location-allocation|Emergency Response
A102597SY