Jaeden Duncombe 12R

Geography BGCSE Coursework

Chapter 1

Introduction:

On the 20th of January 2023, I went to the Oakes Field Roundabout with the 12th and 11th

Geography class, and Geography teachers of Anatol Rodgers in order to conduct a Traffic

Surveillance to determine which street and time frame are the busiest, and which vehicle is the

most popular accessing the Roundabout. This was done by visiting the Roundabout and taking

tallies of the cars with the purpose of completing a coursework assignment submitted to the

Social Sciences department of Anatol Rodgers in partial fulfillment of the BGCSE Geography

examination.
Methodology

Pre-Fieldwork

Prior to the day of the Field Trip, each student taking the Geography BGCSE examination

purchased a Steno Notepad and immediately set it up. This was done by writing down the aims

and objectives, hypotheses, map titles, coding system, different stations, sketching the map of

New Providence, and tables. After that, we were all organized into eight different groups for

each of the streets on the Oakes Field Roundabout.

During Fieldwork

On the 20th of January, we were escorted to the Roundabout by a bus and arrived at 7:45. We

used those 15 minutes before 8 AM to organize ourselves into our group stations. After that, we

separated into our different stations according to our group. Once that was done, us students

began taking tallies of the different cars we saw at exactly 8:00 AM. We stopped at 9:00 and

used the 1 hour interval to count up our tallies and ensure that all of us in the group had the same

amount of tallies. We repeated the initial process of tally taking the different cars that we saw at

10 AM, and we stopped at 11 AM. Lastly, we sketched the Roundabout in our Notepads.

Post-Fieldwork

Before we were escorted back to school by the bus, all of the groups got together and our

Geography teachers collected our Notepads. Once we arrived on Anatol Rodgers grounds,

students went to the Geography classroom to complete the Notepad. A master table was drawn
on the board with the different streets and times, and eight students from the eight groups put in

the totals of the street they were on. After this, the rest of the students took those tallies from the

board. We then discussed and came to an analysis based on the results from the fieldwork.

Before our teacher collected our Steno Notepads, all students ensured that the tallies were

accurate.
Map of New Providence Highlighting the Study Area
 Table 1- Table showing total amount of cars on each street:

Vehicles Poinciana Drive Thompson Carter Street Nassau Street

Boulevard

Private Car 1,594 1,915 1,690 1,840

Company 307 191 160 140

Vehicle

Jitney/Bus 42 7 35 12

Government 81 82 39 37

Vehicle

Bonded Vehicle 0 10 7 5

Taxicab 53 41 27 37

Motorcycle 18 9 4 6

Bicycle 6 2 1 6
Graph 1- Graph showing total amount of cars on each street:
 Table 2- Table showing the total amount of each car:

Vehicles Total

Private Car 7,039

Company Vehicle 798

Jitney/Bus 96

Government Vehicle 239

Bonded Vehicle 22

Taxicab 158

Motorcycle 37

Bicycle 15
Graph 2- Graph showing total amount of each car:
 Table 3- Table showing the total amount of vehicles at each time frame:

Vehicles 8-9 AM 10-11 AM

Private Car 3,879 3,160

Company Vehicle 375 423

Jitney/Bus 61 35

Government Vehicle 97 142

Bonded Vehicle 9 13

Taxicab 73 85

Motorcycle 17 20

Bicycle 7 8
Graph 3: Graph showing total number of vehicles at each time frame.
Chapter 2

Analysis

One of our hypotheses stated that Poinciana Drive would be the busiest street accessing the

roundabout. I heavily disagree with this statement as it is incorrect. If you look at Table 1, you

will see that Thompson Boulevard would be the busiest street as it has 2,257 cars in total.

Meanwhile, Poinciana Drive has in total 2,101 cars. Furthemore, 26% of the cars were present on

Thompson Boulevard. This may be because of the many business buildings such as Scotiabank

and the Passport Office that are present on this street. Most of the people traveling the

roundabout were most likely trying to access one of those buildings. Our second hypothesis

stated that Private Cars would be the most popular vehicle using the roundabout. I agree with this

statement as it is true. Based on Table 2, Private Cars have a total of 7,039 meaning that 84% of

the cars present were Private Cars. The reason may be how easy it is to get access to a Private

Car, compared to vehicles such as the Taxicab, Bus, Company Vehicles and Government

Vehicles. And many people prefer to own a car over vehicles such as a bicycle or motorcycle.

The final hypothesis states that during the hour 8-9 am, the roundabout is busier than 10-11 am.

Once again, I agree with this statement because of Table 3’s results which show that the 8-9 hour

has 4,518 cars and the 10-11 hour has 3,886 cars. This means that 54% of cars traveled the

roundabout during the 8-9 am hour. This may be because most schools and jobs start at 9 am.

Many people leave an hour before 9, which would be 8 am, to drop their kids off to school or go

to work. In the 10-11 am hour, many people are already at work, or have already dropped their

kids off at school so the road gets slightly less busy.

Conclusion

Our first hypothesis, Poinciana Drive is the busiests street accessing the roundabout, is

incorrect as Thompson Boulevard is the busiest street accessing the roundabout. Poinciana Drive

was found to have 2,101 cars in total whereas Thompson Boulevard had 2,257 cars in total.

Private Cars are the most popular vehicle accessing the roundabout, our second hypothesis is

correct. We found that Private Cars had a high total of 7,039 cars. Lastly, our third hypothesis,

during the hour 8-9 am the roundabout is busier than 10.11 am, is also correct. From what we

have found, the 8-9 hour had a total of 4,518 cars while the total of cars on the 10-11 hour was

3,886. Therefore, we were able to achieve all of our objectives. The busiest street accessing the

roundabout in Thompson Boulevard, the most popular vehicle accessing the roundabout are

Private Cars, and the busiest time frame at the roundabout is the 8-9 am hour. We were able to

achieve these objectives because of prior preparations such as purchasing the books and being

organized into different groups. Furthermore, we were able to take tallies of the cars we saw and

once we headed back, every group helped create a master table. However, we encountered

problems such as not starting on time which means that there would’ve been more cars that we

didn’t take tallies of. This would cause the results to be inaccurate. To solve this, we would have

to ensure that we arrive on time. Another problem we encountered was losing count of the

amount of cars which would also result in inaccurate results. We should’ve had about three

people count the cars, and have the others take tallies of the cars.