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

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 multi-modal 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Paratransit
• minibuses
• informality
• Nairobi
• Maputo
• transportation planning
• data

Acknowledgements

We would like to give special thanks to Joaquin Romero de Tejada who coordinates the Maputo project locally, undertook the fieldwork in Maputo and provided data and valuable comments on this paper. We would also like to thank the Kestrelman Trust; their support has been key to the Maputo project. This paper would also not be possible without the work of the Digital Matatus team along with the many students at the University of Nairobi and MIT who helped in the mapping work over the years.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Volvo Research and Educational Foundations [grant number EP -2017-02-MAC-CSUD]; Kestrelman Trust.