Stuck in traffic : urban transport in Africa

Abstract

This note summarizes recent research on urban transport in 14 large African cities performed at the World Bank under the aegis of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic project. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of urban transport in Africa, with a view to drawing out the main challenges facing the sector and illustrating the different ways in which these have been addressed. This report highlights the trends emerging from the study and presents summary tables of performance indicators gathered for each city. Following this introduction, section two describes the overall market for urban transport services, focusing on the large buses and minibuses. Section three treats the main aspects of the institutional and regulatory framework for urban transport, considering the organization of the sector, the allocation of routes, licensing of vehicles and drivers, and the regulation of fares. Section four examines the infrastructure endowment (in terms of roads and bus fleets) in each city. Section five looks at service delivery issues, including access, affordability, and quality of service. The conclusions are presented in the last section. The annex provides short profiles of each city in the sample.