A people-centred view on paratransit in South Africa

Woolf, S.E.; Joubert, Johan W.

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2013.04.005

Cited by 51 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…However, many institutional, structural and political complexities, including concerns with illegality and even violence in the sector exist around regulating these minibuses; how to engage the sector to generate improvements is challenging and not always clear (Goodfellow, 2016;Gwillam, 2008;Klopp & Mitullah, 2016;Saddier et al, 2016;Wilkinson, 2010). Finally, minibuses are often seen as competition for the more formal systems like BRT (Lomme, 2008;Woolf & Joubert, 2013). These difficulties appear to create incentives to avoid a deeper, more sustained engagement with the minibus sector despite its contribution to providing transport services in African cities.…”

Section: Overview Of Transportation Planning In African Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping minibuses in Maputo and Nairobi: engaging paratransit in transportation planning in African cities

Klopp

Cavoli

2019

Transport Reviews

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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.

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Section: Overview Of Transportation Planning In African Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping minibuses in Maputo and Nairobi: engaging paratransit in transportation planning in African cities

Klopp

Cavoli

2019

Transport Reviews

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“…While the drivers are almost exclusively young and male, at least half the users are females who experience lower levels of personal mobility (Diaz Olvera et al, 2012). Bodas provide important sources of income (Howe & Davis, 2002;Woolf & Joubert, 2013), with cheap imported motorbikes from China making the industry a popular entry-level job for young migrants (Diaz Olvera et al, 2013). Unlike other cities in Uganda (and beyond), Kampala has little history of bicycle use.…”

Section: Informal Transport and Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a geography of informal transport: Mobility, infrastructure and urban sustainability from the back of a motorbike

Evans

O’Brien

2018

Trans Inst British Geog

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Informal transport is vital to billions of people living in rapidly growing cities in the Global South, yet is increasingly marginalised as governments legislate against modes of transport that do not conform to ideals of the “modern city.” Using an innovative combination of GPS and qualitative methods, this paper investigates how the estimated 145,000 boda‐boda motorcycle taxis in Kampala, the rapidly growing capital of Uganda, provide mobility and income for its inhabitants. While careful not to over‐romanticise the informality of African cities, we argue that there is a pressing need to understand the contribution that uniquely adapted local transport solutions like motorcycle taxis make to the sustainability of the planet's most rapidly growing cities. The paper shows how mobile methods reveal the ways in which informal transport weaves the city and the lives of its residents together, and proposes a research agenda to make informal urban transport and the kinds of mobility it enables more visible within debates concerning the future of cities.

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“…The limited literature focussed on paratransit in Sub-Saharan Africa has focussed on the emergence, violent competition and labour relations associated with paratransit in Southern Africa (e.g. McCaul 1990, Khosa, 1992, 1995, Dugard, 2001, Woolf and Joubert, 2013, and on the organisation and service quality of paratransit in East and West Africa (e.g. Adeniji, 1987, Khayesi, 1999, Rizzo, 2002, Kanyama et al, 2004, Mutongi, 2006, Wa Mungai and Samper, 2006.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving paratransit service: Lessons from inter-city matatu cooperatives in Kenya

et al. 2017

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While providing essential access for large portions of city populations, the quality of paratransit services in Sub-Saharan African cities is poor. Poor quality of service can be attributed to two features of the paratransit business operating model: driver remuneration on the basis of a daily 'target system'; and cash-based business management in which vehicle depreciation is ignored as an operating expense. In Kenya, the voluntary organisation of fragmented inter-city matatu businesses into Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) has resulted in improved service, regulatory compliance and technology adoption, but little is known of how they operate. The aim of this paper is to gain insight into how the Kenyan inter-city matatu SACCOs are organised and have improved services, and to explore the transferability of this experience and the lessons it offers. The exploratory nature of the study, and constrained resources, necessitated that the research adopt a qualitative case study method. It was found that most of the case study SACCOs have addressed the root causes of poor service quality by shifting the remuneration of drivers from daily cash targets to salaries, and by requiring vehicle depreciation costing through compulsory contributions to the cooperative's capital savings from which vehicle acquisition and repair loans can be derived. Due to the particular shuttle-like nature of inter-city services and the considerable institutional support that exists in Kenya for cooperatives, the direct transfer of successes to other contexts is likely to prove difficult. Identifying the features of the inter-city SACCO model that have led to paratransit service improvements, and attempting to replicate these, may therefore be more effective than attempting to replicate the model in its entirety. These features are argued to be operator consolidation, accompanied by salaried drivers, systematic vehicle monitoring and compulsory vehicle depreciation costing. They can be adopted in other forms of paratransit organisation and regulation, but will require considerable adaptation to context.

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A people-centred view on paratransit in South Africa

Cited by 51 publications

References 12 publications

Mapping minibuses in Maputo and Nairobi: engaging paratransit in transportation planning in African cities

Mapping minibuses in Maputo and Nairobi: engaging paratransit in transportation planning in African cities

Towards a geography of informal transport: Mobility, infrastructure and urban sustainability from the back of a motorbike

Improving paratransit service: Lessons from inter-city matatu cooperatives in Kenya

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