Sustainable land use as panacea for efficient households' trips in Osun State Nigeria

An underlying factor with the problems of trip making in urban areas is related to the land use potentials and the condition of its transport system. The land use pattern of any settlement is the basis for its physical planning, especially in rapidly growing cities. This study examines land use and households' trip in selected cities of Osun State, Nigeria. Data were obtained for the pattern of land uses. Data were also randomly obtained from 2,134 households to examine their trip pattern. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse land use pattern, while correlation analysis was used to examine relationship between land use and households' trip pattern. Findings revealed that all the cities studied possessed characteristics of mixed land use. The study shows that 57.15% of the land use is for residential while non-residential accounted for 42.85%. Further, households made an average of 27 trips per week and travelled an average of 10.65kilometres per day in the selected cities. Results from correlation analysis indicated that there is low positive correlation between residential land use and trip frequency (r = 0.302) as well as distance travel (r = 0.222). Further, with correlation coefficient (r) of 0.613 and 0.559, there is strong positive correlation between non-residential land use and trip frequency as well as distance traveled by the household. The study recommends holistic urban planning to reduce future urban land use problems that may lead cities into a chaotic situation.