ADVANCED INTER-BORDER INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AFRICA DEVELOPMENT INTEGRATION: A PROPOSAL (Paper 626)

Africa’s major development challenges are the acceleration of economic growth and the reduction of poverty. The Trans-African Highway network is being developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (ADB),and the African Union in conjunction with regional international communities. Trans-border delay is still a major problem in these highway networks even where there is regional paved road. Intelligent Transport System (ITS) is the global response to transportation bottlenecks in term of real-time information dissemination for effective transport management. The main aim of this study is to design an Advanced Inter-Border Information and Communication Transport Management System for Africa Economic Integration and propose mechanism for integrating existing vehicle and truck recognition system into a single database system. The study includes the design of hybrid vehicle plate recognition system for border monitoring and tracking that will run on a secured server with a Distributed Database Management System (DDMS) with user  authentication capabilities to prevent unauthorized viewing of generated report by individuals with lower clearance level. The entire system will be designed with mirroring of the database system in Cloud in providing access to information from any part of the continent. In realizing the design, there is the need for Intergovernmental Panel on Inter-border Land Transport System (IPITS) and annual budgetary allocation to the scheme by all the member nations.