Welcome to this thirty-second issue of Pop Transport, the fortnightly newsletter of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation.
Informal transportation is very, very popular (widespread, and for the people).
It overwhelmingly dominates shared transportation in the rapidly growing towns and cities of the Global South. It moves billions and employs millions of people around the world.
That’s why we call this newsletter “Pop Transport.”
In this issue:
A survey and map of boda bodas in Kampala
A new group and newsletter on transportation in Africa
A short analysis of market and labor in Colombia shows that informality is normal and formality is the exception
ICYMI, a paper on “Re-thinking Mobility Poverty: Understanding Users’ Geographies, Backgrounds and Aptitudes.”
Seeing the city
“The first act of inclusion is to be counted.” That’s our favorite quote from Shack/Slum Dwellers International. We always make this point about informal transportation: we don’t even have reliable counts because governments aren’t interested.
Our friends over at Lubyanza decided to conduct their count of boda bodas on the streets of Uganda’s capital city. They call it the Quarterly Kampala Boda Report.
Since motorcycle boda bodas began increasing in number in Kampala in the late 1990s (purveyors will know the original bicycle variety has been around since the 1970s), the only data available has been from one-off academic articles and largely disinterested government bodies. If you want to know, for example, how many boda boda riders are wearing helmets in Kampala, you’d have to scrape through a number of academic articles written over the past ten years — all using different methods — making it quite difficult to compare them. If you wanted to know how many boda bodas there are in Kampala, you’d need to go to the Uganda Revenue Authority with a very good reason and a promise not to share it with anyone else — and even then, their registration numbers are an underestimate.
To address the gap, we have started to collect data independently, on a quarterly basis. We’re doing it on our own shilling and we started modestly, by obtaining three measures through simple observation: 1) numbers of moving bodas, 2) rider helmet wearing, and 3) utility rate (% of moving bodas carrying passengers or delivery loads). Conducting this work on a quarterly basis with a consistent methodology, we hope to be able to provide data to policy makers, innovators, boda boda riders, and the general public on the boda boda industry.
The work is voluntary, just like the first maps of informal transportation routes. Here’s where some very agile philanthropy would be helpful.
Check out the complete article, and if you have any ideas about how we could fund grassroots efforts like this, drop us a comment or contact Lubyanza directly.
Seeing the continent
We’re so excited to see the launch of Transport Africa.
Transport Africa researches and curates the (hi)stories, theories, concepts, models, practices, and systems of (non)motorized transportation and travels in/of/from Africa. It is written, edited, designed, and produced by a team of transport academics, researchers, and professionals who are passionate about sharing information on Africa’s transportation and travels. They are solely responsible for the content on this website unless otherwise noted. Their goal is to track the state of transportation, mobility, accessibility and traveling in Africa. They also aim to examine transport datasets, and explore the intricate relationships between transportation projects and politics, both at the national and local levels.
Transport Africa is simply for the interested citizen, the studious politician, an ambitious planner or student, a fact-checking journalist or the high-growth market businessman. Transport Africa is the most valuable online asset for Africa’s transportation news and research
We couldn’t find who’s in the “transport academics, researchers, and professionals.” Oforiwaa Pee Agyei-Boakye bylines a number of the articles.
Check out one of Agyei-Boakye’s posts from February: Public Transportation in Africa: Informal Transport or Paratransit.
The informal transport systems in Africa are difficult to navigate, but nonetheless a necessity for those who have no other option. They are efficient and effective ways to move people around the African continent. Not only do these vehicles cover more ground than your standard bus or taxi, but they also offer more affordable fares that are suited to a wider audience. This type of public transportation isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; in fact, its appeal is likely to grow as many African cities urbanize.
Seeing the (real) economy
Check out this excellent paper about informality in Colombia’s economy (pdf link) from the International Economic Law (IEL) collective.
The paper is the first issue from IEL’s Ruptures 21: Towards New Economies, Societies, and Legalities project. The report “highlights the need for a new social policy starting from the assumption that informality is the norm and formality the exception in Colombia.”
Per their estimates, “approximately 21 million persons in Colombia, around 43% of the country’s total population (49 million), live off of the informal economy.”
Or “1.6 informal workers for every single formal worker in Colombia.”
In “Transportation and Storage,” they estimate the ratio is 1.58 informal workers per formal worker.
Given the size and dominance of informality, the authors recommend that:
…A new social policy should be constructed which would be premised on a reevaluation of both formality and extreme poverty, as unique means of access to the social security healthcare system and other social benefits and subsidies.
They also call out:
Reforms of labour regulations are also crucial. The triangular relations model of capital, employment and State no longer reflect the labour world dynamics. Moreover, classic labour law was constructed in light of the For- dist model in which subordination and bilatera- lity are the central premises (Porras, 2018; Vosko, 2010). This is not relevant to most of today’s workers, and as such it is necessary to recognise the new work dynamics and regulate them according to decent employment stan- dards (Contouris, 2020).
Seeing the user
ICYMI, Routledge published Re-thinking Mobility Poverty: Understanding Users’ Geographies, Backgrounds and Aptitudes last year.
The volume, edited by Tobias Kuttler and Massimo Moraglio, “seeks to better conceptualise and define mobility poverty, addressing both its geographies and socio-economic landscapes. It moves beyond the analysis of ‘transport poverty and innovatively explores mobility inequalities and social construction of mobility disadvantages.”
Though focused on mobility poverty in European countries, the insights and articles apply to informal transportation in the Global South.
As our own Mimi Sheller says, in her foreword to the volume:
Simply inserting carbon pricing, promoting transit-oriented development or subsidising electric vehicles may actually resist transformative change if it leaves unchallenged the underlying culture of private, individualised automobility and the spatial and social relations that go along with automobility, including the cultural discourses that equate personal private mobility with freedom and dominance (Freudendal-Pedersen 2009). Roads and highways dominate the built landscape and the over-arching mobility culture remains one in which automobility is normalised as freedom and associated with wealth and privilege.
An Open Access version is available here.
In our quick roundup.
In India, the state-owned Convergence Energy Services Limited announced its partnership with Three Wheels United to purchase 70,000 electric three-wheelers over the next five years.
In Ghana, e-mobility startup SolarTaxi raised funding from Nairobi-based “venture builder” Persistent. SolarTaxi’s electric two-wheelers provide delivery and transportation services in Kumasi, Takoradi, and Tamale. Notable clients in Ghana include e-commerce firms like Jumia Ghana and Bolt, who both employ SolarTaxi’s e-2Ws to transport customer orders throughout Accra.
Pop Transport is a fortnightly newsletter of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation. The Partnership works hand-in-hand with informal urban transportation systems of the Global South to advance innovation, improve services, and change business models. By leveraging new technology and innovative policies, we believe these informal networks can confront climate change and make our cities work for everyone.
The Global Partnership for Informal Transportation is a project of NewCities, initiated by Agile City Partners and supported by CoMotion Inc.
Our Strategic Partners include WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and the Shared-Use Mobility Center.