Saturday, August 4, 2012

Taming the Lagos Traffic Monster: Bringing Innovation to to Urban Transportation

Many people working, schooling or just living in the city have a common headache — a long commute. Sometimes the situation is complete traffic chaos. Most of us have learned to endure it but in a country with lifespan as short as 55 years, that’s about half the average lifespan in Japan! a new research is giving us reason to worry: The new study finds that long urban commuting and the chaotic traffic might be taking a deadly toll on our bodies.

The study by Washington University in St. Louis found that commutes take people away from exercise and lead to conditions that are strong predictors of diabetes, obesity and some cancers. Couple this with the fact that most of our cars and buses are not effectively air conditioned and we rarely go for routine health check up, the problem becomes even more worrisome.

The researchers found people who live more than 10 miles from their work are more likely to have high blood pressure than people with shorter commutes.
People who commute more than 15 miles each way are much more likely to be obese, perhaps because people who commute that distance don’t get enough daily activity, the study found. “I definitely see how it could wear you down, especially at an older age. It’s very frustrating, you sit in traffic, especially in the early hours of the morning it could be very tedious,” one man tells.

Even long commuters who found ways to get enough exercise were more likely to have high blood pressure than people with shorter commutes who get the same amount of exercise. The study was published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine. The latest research comes after a 2011 study by Swedish researchers found that people who had long commutes to work were more likely to divorce, experience neck pain and loneliness.

According to another report from the American Community Survey, over 86 percent of workers commute to the office by car, train or bus, and the average commute lasts about 45 minutes.

With such a large percentage of people sitting on their way to work, it now behooves on both employers and employees to reexamine their transportation routines and practices so as to adopt more healthy alternatives and this forms the premise of our discussion today.

For starters, Work sites can play a role by allowing more flexible in and out times so people can drive to work outside rush hour, or they can allow physical activity breaks during the day,
Governments can design modern, convenient and fast multi modal urban transportation systems including rails within cities, water transit, city air vehicles and dedicated routes for smaller vehicles including bikes or if it’s possible encourage people who live closer to work to walk or bike, or if they must work far from home, adopt sleeker, faster and greener transport modes.

Next time, we shall continue with this discussion with expose on Real Innovative products and service that are now available to enable you enjoy a smoother Urban Transportation, after that i will show how you can take advantage of them and then try to offer other creative tips on effective and healthy commuting habits.


Ignite Ideas to Success.



2 comments:

  1. this is very timely going by what we now go through due to the closure of the partial third mainland bridge.
    George Aigbokun

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  2. very needful, i actually plan my travel better, sometimes stay late at work just to have free drive home. But with this, i know how to beat the chaotic traffic. nice one victor!
    Rick Nelson, VGC

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