Using data and technology to integrate mobility modes in low-income cities

ABSTRACT

The utilisation of data and technology in transportation has given rise to new forms of flexible, on-demand mobility and urban freight services. Such advances have also enabled the integration of multiple transportation modes and facilitated more predictable, environmentally-friendly, high-volume trips. While many of these technologies are now commonplace in higher income cities, they are less prevalent in lower income cities. This review identifies a) recent advances in technology and data that can facilitate multimodal urban travel, and b) the existing and potential application of these advances in low- and lower middle-income (LIC and LMIC) cities, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This review examines peer-reviewed and grey literature and uses a multi-method approach with expert interviews. The review identifies open transportation data and data standards, global positioning systems, cashless fare payment, and blockchain as having high potential to facilitate integrated mobility in lower income contexts, and considers potential barriers to adopting and risks of utilising these technologies in LICs and LMICs. The review finds that, enabled by technology and data advances, LICs and LMICs could leapfrog the high car use and inefficient urban freight systems typical of higher income cities to more integrated, efficient, multimodal transport systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Multimodal integration
• integrated transport
• high-volume transport
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• data
• technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We used national income classifications as defined by the World Bank, whereby, e.g., a city in a High-Income Country is a High-Income City (HIC), etc.

2 Tinka and Behrens (GSMA, 2019b) define paratransit as “a flexible mode of public or for-hire passenger transportation that does not follow fixed schedules,” including minibuses and motorcycle taxis. Paratransit can be both “informal” and “semi-formal.” There is a growing body of literature (e.g., Klopp et al., 2017) that uses the term “semi-formal” for systems that are recognised by authorities; for example, in many African cities, minibuses must obtain licenses to operate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department for International Development [Grant number 11271-HVT/006: Theme 2].