GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION (GSM) USAGE AND HOUSEHOLDS TRAVEL BEHAVIOUR IN MINNA, NIGERIA

Abstract

The application of mobile phone usage on urban travel by households in developing countries particularly in Nigeria has revolutionized people’s daily routine by reducing the time-space constraints thus giving virtual accessibility to activity areas. No wonder the effect of mobile phone usage on travel behaviour has been a main concern on whether it has complementary, substitutional, generating or trip-saving effects. This study explores the relationship between mobile phone usage and travel among households in Minna, nigeria. Data were collected through questionnaire administration on randomly selected 1,303 respondents using open data kit (odk) package. In achieving this, a multistage sampling technique was adopted in which the city was divided into four cluster zones, from which 12 different residential neighbourhoods were selected in each zone. Findings reveal that 76% of respondents possess and uses mobile phones as a means of communication. Furthermore, results shows that 83.7% of trips were saved by mobile phone usage, 82.1% generated trips, 83.5% complement trips while 96.4% substituted trips. The analysis of multiple regression shows that gsm variables were strong and quite adequate to assess its influence on households travel in the study area with coefficient of determination indicating 60% (i.e. R2 = 60%). This result indicates that gsm usage relatively has high contributory effects on trips made by households in the study area. The result of factor analysis shows that 3 factors whose eigenvalues are greater than 1 accounted for 70% of the total variance. These factors are frequency of daily call, trip substituted by call and trip generated by call. It was therefore recommended that residents should be advised to make more phone calls to save trips, travel cost and time rather than commuting, except if necessary in order to reduce time-space constraints will invariably give virtual accessibility to activity areas.