No abstract

Often called paratransit because of their flexible stops, schedules and routes, minibuses make up the bulk of public transport in African cities. Despite their ubiquity and importance, these systems are poorly understood by transportation planners who tend to focus on large-scale urban infrastructure projects such as highways, commuter rail or bus rapid transit systems. The assumption within much of this planning is that these minibus systems are barriers to change and will become at most secondary "feeder" buses within large-scale projects, but structured plans detailing this vision are lacking. This paper argues that frequent failure to collect data and value important paratransit systems as a critical part of transportation in their own right is deeply problematic from the point of view of equity, access and inclusive and effective planning. We ask whether the growing number of bottom up mapping projects of minibus systems can disrupt this status quo. By comparing two mapping projects, Digital Matatus in Nairobi and the Mapa Dos Chapas in Maputo, we find that inclusive, collaborative mapping can help render these minibuses more visible in planning and provoke more grounded and inclusive "planning conversations" on multimodal integration, passenger information and minibus upgrading, all key but relatively marginalised aspects of creating accessible, low emission, high quality and safe public transport in African cities.

How should policymakers engage with the possibilities of self-driving cars? There has been prominent discussion of proposed benefits and safety concerns. However, considering the scale of investment and speed of development, the social complexity of systems involving self-driving cars has received inadequate attention. Self-driving cars are currently being tested on open roads. The anticipation necessary for good governance can be informed only in part by such experiments. There is a need to broaden the set of issues that are considered relevant. In this paper, we report on the first systematic process of engagement with stakeholders in the UK. We organise the findings of these workshops in terms of questions that might inform the ongoing debate about the governance of self-driving cars. These questions are grouped under four headings: technological and market developments, use of and reaction to technology, wider impacts and the role of the public sector. Our conclusion is that this debate urgently needs to be broadened in order to build trustworthiness and maximise the public value of this emerging technology. The possibilities of self-driving cars suggest the need for a more active form of governance for responsible innovation.