The impact of electronic land administration on urban housing development: The case study of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria

This paper evaluates the impact of electronic land administration as an e-government policy initiative in Nigeria. It analyses conceptually the differences between the expected and actual value of Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS)—an e-land administration project—on urbanisation in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria. The AGIS case study reveals that differences between the expected and actual value of strengthening the state’s financial capacity are low. The differences are medium for enhancing access to and security of credit, and improvement of land use planning and environmental management and high for the promotion of popular participation. The elicited differences are traceable to hindrances inscribed in Land Use and National Housing Acts, to inequitable access to land, inconsistent resettlement policy, poor community participation and financial misconduct. The findings suggest the need to pay attention to provisions through which e-government can support the reduction of country specific problems, improve the quality of institutions and to promote urbanisation, thereby increasing social welfare as well as participation by the people in promoting suitable and adequate shelter for all citizens.     

Recoverable robust timetabling for single delay: Complexity and polynomial algorithms for special cases

In this paper, we study the problem of planning a timetable for passenger trains considering that possible delays might occur due to unpredictable circumstances. If a delay occurs, a timetable could not be able to manage it unless some extra time has been scheduled in advance. Delays might be managed in several ways and the usual objective function considered for such purpose is the minimization of the overall waiting time caused to passengers. We analyze the timetable planning problem in terms of the recoverable robustness model, where a timetable is said to be recoverable robust if it is able to absorb small delays by possibly applying given limited recovery capabilities. The quality of a robust timetable is measured by the price of robustness that is the ratio between the cost of the recoverable robust timetable and that of a non-robust optimal one.