https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01441647.2019.1598513

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

Bicycle and motorcycle-based boda boda are a Ugandan innovation that extends the range of transport services found in most of Africa. They provide a short-distance, low-capacity service able to serve low-density demands, and those where access is physically restricted and cannot be met by conventional public transport. Because of low incomes and the high unit cost of the services, the poor benefit mainly through employment in the industry. For the covering abstract see ITRD E116619.

Boda Boda - Uganda's rural and urban low-capacity transport services. Final report.

Can electric vehicles be good for Sub-Saharan Africa?

Minibus taxis in Kampala's paratransit system: Operations, economics and efficiency

Minibus taxi public transport is a seemingly chaotic phenomenon in the developing cities of the Global South with unique mobility and operational characteristics. Eventually this wide-spread fleet of minibus taxis will have to transition to electric vehicles. This paper examines the impact of this inevitable evolution on a city-wide scale in Kampala, Uganda. We present a generic simulation environment to assess the grid impact and charging opportunities, given the unique paratransit mobility patterns. We used floating car data to assess the energy requirements of electric minibus taxis, which will have a knock-on effect on the region’s already fragile electrical grid. We used spatio-temporal and solar photovoltaic analyses to assess the informal and formal stops that would be needed for the taxis to recharge from solar PV in the region’s abundant sunshine. The results showed that the median energy demand across all simulated days of the fleet of taxis was 220 kWh /d. This ranged to a maximum of 491 kWh /d, with a median charging potential (stationary time) across taxis of 8 h /d to 12 h /d. The median potential for charging from solar PV ranged from 0.24 kWh/m2 to 0.52 kWh/m2 per day, across the taxis. Our simulator and results will allow traffic planners and grid operators to assess and plan for looming electric vehicle roll-outs to the most-used mode of transport in Africa. 

https://engrxiv.org/preprint/download/1855/3773

Walking on sunshine: Pairing electric vehicles with solar energy for sustainable informal public transport in Uganda

Ray of hope for sub-Saharan Africa's paratransit: Solar charging of urban electric minibus taxis in South Africa

Characterizing the movement patterns of minibus taxis in Kampala's paratransit system

In cities in the emerging world, public transport networks are governed by a large number of agents, each with their own agendas, priorities, incentives and resources, interacting nonlinearly through complex feedback loops. The transport system in these cities have developed into a semi-chaotic self-organizing structure with seemingly unpredictable behaviour to an outside observer. This is due to user agent actions by passengers, independent determination of operating plans and practices by transport operators, and a managing authority exhibiting a lack of will (both political and institutional), to implement adequate control measures to provide regulation and management of these systems. Based on the problems that face transport systems in developing cities and public transport in particular, this paper reports on an attempt to understand the supply of public transport in the Kampala area in a novel manner. We describe a mapping approach using a custom-developed smartphone application which was used to quickly and accurately capture informal transport systems for analysis and study of urban mobility where no dependable data was currently available. Secondly, based on the data created by the study project, to provide insights into the routes, operations and characteristics of the minibus taxi network which convey the majority of Kampala’s travelers. Our hypothesis is that by understanding the network in geospatial terms, we will be able to create benefits for all role-players and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the supply of public transport to more closely match the demand for public transport in an emerging world city.

Mapping the informal public transport network in Kampala with smartphones : making sense of an organically evolved chaotic system in an emerging city in Sub-Saharan Africa

Innocent Ndibatya

Papers

Minibus taxis in Kampala's paratransit system: Operations, economics and efficiency

Walking on sunshine: Pairing electric vehicles with solar energy for sustainable informal public transport in Uganda

Ray of hope for sub-Saharan Africa's paratransit: Solar charging of urban electric minibus taxis in South Africa

Characterizing the movement patterns of minibus taxis in Kampala's paratransit system

Mapping the informal public transport network in Kampala with smartphones : making sense of an organically evolved chaotic system in an emerging city in Sub-Saharan Africa