Accessibility Modeling for a Developing Economy: The Case of Inter-Regional Traffic Flow in the Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya

Abstract

Travel demand in Kenya inasmuch as organized socio-economic system of the Lake Victoria Basin Region, with Kisumu City as its epicenter, is related to production, distribution and consumption of goods and services relative to their spatial locations. Be it that, given the prevailing income levels and fast growing population coupled with ever rising rate of travel costs, accessibility has and will continue to be considerably reduced particularly for employment and other essential activities located principally in industrial and urban centers of the Lake Basin. Services including commercial, social, school, medical and other essential amenities situated and concentrated in Kisumu are hampered by poor access, weather and other geographical factors influencing the engineering state of the roads. Remoteness and accessibility for products of even those farmers in nucleus agricultural rural areas (for example, in the sugar belt) culminate in failure of most crops harvested not being delivered to their respective processing factories among other woes. In other words, as can be inferred from inventory drawn from studies of the Lake Basin, spatial distance, availability and quality of transport govern the relative attractiveness for all passengers and commodities alike in whatever choice of mode taken to the various centers of intended activity. This paper formulates and calibrates a model to give an indicative measure of accessibility relative to existing capacity and quality of service in light of persistent problems plaguing transportation in the Lake Basin region relative to Kisumu, the terminal for commodities and people within the region.


Journal of Civil Engineering Research and Practice Vol.1(1) 2004: 89-101