Sustainable Transportation in Africa

Despite Africa’s huge potential, there is a lack of expertise and investment in infrastructure, leaving millions languishing in poverty .The numbers speak for themselves. If Africa is to unleash its true economic potential, $170 billion is needed every year in infrastructure investment.

In both urban and rural communities around the globe, the challenge of moving people and cargo efficiently, safely, and sustainably — while providing transportation for all segments of society, not just the wealthy — remains a problem begging for new solutions in our increasingly globalized, urbanized, digitized, and environmentally compromised world. Long-established theories and techniques of planners and policymakers must evolve if they are to help sort out our ever more complex transportation infrastructure.

The problems are many. Planners and policymakers need to consider that a large number of the world’s transport systems cannot meet the needs of rapidly growing populations, and many passengers face safety, security, and accessibility issues.

Rural roads provide the minimum infrastructure to sustain and improve the socio-economic development of rural areas and make an important contribution to the development of rural communities.

Many developing and emerging economies face major constraints on rural access, such as the lack of all-season access, poor road conditions and connectivity, and the poor availability, reliability and affordability of transport services.

Financial and technical constraints are often severe, which makes improving rural infrastructure and transport services challenging. A local-resource based approach, making use of local materials, labour, skills and technologies, is a potential solution to, at least partially, overcome such challenges.

Investors also need to rethink traditional approaches to cost-benefit analysis so that investments capture as many of the different impacts of transport as possible, and do so in a way that balances rigor with innovation. A call for advanced 21st-century networks of roads, airports, shipping facilities, train routes, and public transportation is resounding in cities, small communities, and rural areas alike.

If transportation planners and policymakers can successfully address these challenges, they will make a major contribution to improving the lives of people in all types of communities — large and small, central and remote — while at the same time protecting nature and making it possible to deliver the benefits of economic growth in a sustainable, inclusive way.

Sustainable transportation in Africa means “subsidy-free, but affordable public transport for almost all”. That already comprises two parts of the sustainability triangle: the economic and social one.

There are already initiatives that start replacing informal transport with formal public transport where huge capacities are needed and that try to reorder the informal public transport in order to supply services to these big corridors.

The ecological part has to be addressed as well, for example in the form of rules that improve the technological level of public transport. The most famous example for this is the state of the vehicles used by informal operators. The average ages of these fleets often lie clearly above 20 years. Regulations regarding security standards and emissions could probably solve this problem, if they are well enforced.

However, sustainability right now is not primarily about the ecological part, but rather about the functional, economic and social issues of transport. People on the street, making their daily transport decisions – especially in Africa – are normally not being environmentally conscious in that decision. They are thinking about how they can get from A to B as fast, as cheap and as convenient as possible.

A roadmap for sustainable transportation in Africa

If the functional and social questions are solved and secure, affordable, efficient and convenient public transport systems start operating in more and more cities, the ecological side will already have experienced a substantial improvement. Technological questions can be solved in a second step.

However, non-technological solutions are the first ones to address, which means solutions that can be provided by just reorganizing transport.

These solutions are a lot faster to implement than technological improvements. They can also work as a basis for future technological solutions that will most probably provide a huge leap forward, not only at an African, but at an international scale, for example the combination of solar power and electrical drives.

In addition to that, in order to be able to come up with technological solutions, cities need to know exactly what conditions they are dealing with and that is in many cases still very unclear in Africa. There are few traffic studies, even in the bigger cities who often have no detailed knowledge of the problems that they are actually facing.

Examples of new sustainable initiatives and technologies underway in Africa. Currently, there are various interesting projects underway. Several examples of different modes of transport will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

In Nigeria, there is a big ropeway system being planned in order to keep the traffic out of Lagos Island and providing better accessibility of the island from the mainland. It will provide a better connection to the three sides of surrounding mainland. Right now, bridges to the island are completely congested and there is no working formal public transport alternative except for an insufficient BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system.

Another ropeway project in Mombasa (Kenya) is connecting Mombasa Island to the South. There are two bridges in the North East and North West of Mombasa Island, but no connection in the South except for a very unreliable ferry.

Crossing the short gap between the island and the mainland with a cable car will most probably have a huge positive impact on the urban development of that southern part of the island.

A transport mode that needs to be treated with caution is the light rail. There is a big need in African cities to use the still existing railroad corridors that usually touch all the focal growth areas of the city. Refurbishing these corridors and using them for urban and metropolitan transport could be an interesting solution, but requires a huge financial investment.

However, the light rail needs to be part of a systematic approach. The one that is built in Addis Ababa at the moment still seems more like an isolated activity in order to get rid of road congestion along its corridor. A big network of feeder systems needs to be provided, in order to make it an artery of a comprehensive transport system.

Making public transport the most attractive mode of transport in Africa

The integration of a BRT system and the new Gautrain system in Johannesburg is absolutely worth looking at. Gautrain (the regional train) in Johannesburg and the Gauteng province connects the airport and medium-sized cities of the metropolitan area to the city center.

In urban settings, this connection is combined very well with different BRT systems which use the main corridors of the city building up a high capacity formal transport system. The informal transport is at the moment more focused on feeder services to this system, outside the center. It is a very good start of a coherent system. Especially with rail-based systems, that are extremely expensive to build, solid analyzing and planning is needed before implementation. If that much money is spent on a transport infrastructure it should be a part or the basis of a well-conceived and coherent system.

Basically, if public transport is used to get the poor off the road, so that the well-off people are able to circulate in their private vehicles, the system is not going to work. Once again public transit would be stigmatized as a transport mode for the poor, similar to what happened in Europe and the US before. Because of the lack of formal public transport systems at the moment and the extremely difficult situation of road traffic, there is a huge possibility to really make public transport the most attractive transport solution for a very big part of the society in Africa.

Affordable, reliable and safe rural access in developing economies is crucial in helping to meet the socio-economic needs of rural communities. However, rural access is severely constrained in many areas due to inappropriate design, inadequate maintenance which causes road networks to deteriorate more rapidly than expected, and a lack of affordable transport services.  This has a negative impact on local communities as it increases transport costs, reduces accessibility to essential services and limits social interaction.

The local solutions can help to address these issues since they can be sustainable and cost effective.  Such solutions include appropriate road design standards tailored to local needs; the use of locally sourced materials for road construction and maintenance, the use of alternative maintenance technologies; and the engagement of local communities in providing labour, skilled work and transport services. 

By so doing, socio-economic benefits accrue to the wider community, and help to ensure the preservation of the road networks. Consequently, the use of local solutions for rural transport may be seen as an important enabler to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals associated with No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Clean Water and Sanitation and Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Furthermore, the share of Africa’s working-age population is rising faster than any other region globally; 70 per cent of the populace is under the age of 30. By 2034, it will have a larger potential workforce than either China or India. Only accelerated infrastructure investment will harness this growth. If it does not happen it will be dramatic for Africa and traumatic for Europe since people will start migrating north for a better life; something must be done. African countries are starting to realize that many issues stem from a lack of infrastructure.

Finally, Africa’s infrastructure is improving but it is doing so from a low base. Poor-quality roads and weak transport infrastructure have long been an issue for African trade, and are considered prime reasons for the continent’s low level of competitiveness. The large majority of roads in sub-Saharan Africa are poorly maintained and a significant number – around 53% – remain unpaved #PeopleLivingStandards #TransportationInfrastructure #SDG9 #InnovationandDevelopment #SustainableTransportationinAfrica