Road Transportation Safety in Ghana: An Assessment of The Variability of Articulated Trailer Design Parameters
Keywords:
Road Transportation, Safety, Variability; Articulator Trailer, F Distribution.Abstract
Road transport is the most dominant means of travel in Ghana due to its comparative advantages in terms of accessibility, flexibility and rapidity. Road users have limited knowledge on the operations and maneuverability of articulated trailer vehicles thus making them susceptible to accidents when sharing the road with these trailers. This study seeks to identify the dimensional characteristics used in the design and fabrication of articulated trailers and to create awareness about the variability in these designs. The data used for analyses were obtained from DAF, Benz, Kumasi Suame Magazine, and Takoradi Kokompe Articulated Trailers. Three categories of the above mentioned articulated trailer vehicles namely normal trailer, semi- trailer and double trailer were identified and their height, breadth, length, mass, engine capacity and aspect ratios acquired. Statistical analysis of the differences in the uniformity of the trailers was performed using the one-way ANOVA (F–TEST). Results show that DAF CF 65 has the best mass-capacity ratio of 92.5 kg/kW in the normal trailer category, DAF CF 75 has the best mass-capacity ratio of 81.5 kg/kW in the semi- trailer category, while in the double trailer category, DAF CF 85, Benz Astros, and Takoradi Kokompe have the same mass capacity ratio of 125.7 kg/kW. This suggests that, DAF trailers can pull more load, have a lower tendency of break down and are safer for other users to overtake.
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