Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

Understanding the basic causes of the transport system’s decline and the dominance of informal public transport is essential before improvements can be identified. Because of its social, economic, and environmental importance, the paper’s main focus is on public transport in general, specifically its so-called “informal” aspects. The objectives of the paper are to :
a) examine the uniqueness of public transport systems in Sub-Saharan African cities in terms of their historical, institutional, spatial, social, environmental, economic, and political contexts;
b) explore the causes of the decline of developing country transport systems in general and in public transport’s degradation in particular;
c) discuss commonly-held misconceptions so that policymakers at all levels of government can understand the issues that must be addressed if “informal” public transport is to be improved as part of an enhanced, customer-driven public transport system; and
d) propose the outline of a roadmap for making improvements.
This paper also focuses on all aspects of so-called “minibus-taxis,” the oldest and most prevalent informal sector mode in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. This mode goes by different names in different places; however, the many causes of its rise and the impacts of the rise are common throughout the developing world. Relatively new informal public transport operations using three-wheeled shared ride vehicles (e.g., “Tempos” in India) and motorcycle taxis (e.g., “Xiom” in Vietnam) have arisen as minibus taxis with similar operating and business models. The informal public transport in this paper focuses on mini and midibuses (which go by different names in different cities) ...Regardless of new developments around the world,the paper will focus on the informal “minibus”public transport mode still most prevalent in Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. The implications of this issue resonate far beyond that continent, however, as this mode of transportation is found across Asia and Latin America. Many of the political, geographic, social, economic, financial, and technical factors and trends impacting transport are essentially the same across the world...