The organisation made this plea during the launch and the opening of the Deep Learning IndabaX Gambia 2024 (DLIXG24) held at the GTMI. The event was held under the theme "Applications of Al in Transportation Safety".
The application of AI system in transportation safety is aimed at reducing road traffic accidents, improve flow of traffic and even bring criminals to justice.
Babucarr Bah, Chairperson of AI Gam-Network, underscored the importance of introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in transportation, saying it will contribute to the socio-economic development of the people.
Bah said the introduction was timely and they would want government to invest time and effort to support such grassroots movements so that they could be involved in developing capacities locally.
“AI Gam Network has the capacity. However, we don’t have the manpower to do it but we have ideas to start, and the goal is to build the most critical. All we want is the Government, private sectors and stakeholders to join us to build strong ecosystem on Artificial Intelligence,” he said.
Olawale Fabiyi, member to the organisation, in his presentation on the road safety challenges in The Gambia, said the OIC road project had improved transportation infrastructure, although it had also led to increasing road accidents, raising safety concerns.
In order to address that, he suggested, AI driven deep learning predictive models can analyse accidents to identify patterns and risk factors.
According to him, the analysis can guide targeted safety measures and interventions to mitigate risk and enhance road safety.
“The implementation of Al solutions can improve targeted management, reduce road accidents, ensure the road supports safer, more efficient transportation in the Gambia,” he said.
Muhammed Jamaal, vice chairperson of AI Gam-Network, said they focus on transport mainly because of the observations made since after the construction of the Bertil Harding highway, increase in the rate of accidents, which he said is not necessarily caused by the road but the attitude of the drivers thus they deem it necessary to introduce AI innovation in the transportation system.
Jallow added that AI is the type of technology that will help in solving problems especially in a bid to mimic human intelligence. However, he said most of the problems could be solved by deploying police officers.
“Imagine the entire road network being with police officers, which is not possible. So, it is better to have systems in place that cannot be cheated or bribed, and can automatically detect people that are violating traffic rules”
He added: “We want to collaborate with the Government and relevant stakeholders to implement the system to mitigate the problems, which also need more findings.”
They want policymakers to be involved in not just transportation system but also in the entire AI because “people are recently misusing it which is dangerous thus policies should be in place to regulate that.”
