Urban Informal Transport

In addition to publicly-subsidized bus and rail services, transit in Israel is provided by privately-run minibuses called moniot sherut. This informal transit mode is prevalent throughout the country to a far greater extent than in other highly-developed economies, and remains popular despite regulatory changes and uncertainties. Experience with other informal transit systems in competition with more conventional options across the United States and in other countries indicates that informal transit tends to attract marginalized populations, including immigrants and ethnic minorities. A survey conducted of monit sherut ridership suggests that this holds true in Israel as well, with non-Jewish immigrants vastly overrepresented on informal transit and a huge variety of countries of origin among riders, although women were underrepresented. This may stem from a perception of the monit sherut as a more ethnically-neutral, yet also more male, space than its formal counterpart.

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.

Informal-Moto-Taxis are a common feature of many ‘emerging’ Asian cities. The following proposes that perhaps potential exists to formalise and integrate these services to act as a feeder to BRT systems. Several BRT systems have considered bicycle integration and others the integration of informal-modes, though currently no BRT systems in the world demonstrate BRT integration with motorcycle-taxis. The outcome of this research provides new ways of thinking about informal-transport integration, which could be useful for other cities with informal-motorcycle-taxis that are planning for BRT.

Using ‘XeÔm’ an informal-motorcycle-taxi service in Ho Chi Minh City as a case study, the research explores ways the service could be professionalised, innovated and re-branded using the planned HCM-BRT as a catalyst. The following premises that if planned appropriately, this could extend the influence of the BRT beyond the traditional 400m walking distance and enable more inter-modal trip-chaining in a way that is better adapted to the local culture, especially in a context where pedestrian accessibility is limited, hazardous and inefficient. It is argued this could encourage the much-needed modal shift towards public transport, whilst improving the working-quality for XeÔm and simultaneously making privatised mobility optional and not necessary.
To understand the viability of this concept the research is conducted in 3 steps.  (1) The proposed HCM-BRT corridor and its station precincts are analysed,  The findings revealed accessibility to the HCM-BRT has not been given enough thought which is likely to act as a deterrent to its up-take. (2) 32 XeÔm users and 16 operators were surveyed to provide an understanding of XeÔm characteristics, features and perceptions. The findings revealed that they play an important role in HCMCs transport ecosystem, however also revealed issues of pricing, safety and accountability, it is concluded that in their current disorganised form, they have a collectively damaging behaviour. The final section, attempts to test the viability of the ‘concept’ from a public and policy perspective, revealing that both XeÔm users and operators see value in the idea, 60% of users living within <1-5km of a HCM-BRT corridors would consider using the service, and >75% of operators approved of joining a service, with 68.7% willing to upgrade to a new pricing mechanism. Furthermore, two digitisation platforms ‘GrabBike’ and ‘World-Moto’ have shown themselves to be interested in the market, and the UCCI has described it as an ‘interesting idea’. The research concludes by evaluating the ‘concepts’ applicability and long-term viability, and by putting forward potential steps for further research.

Utilising selected ethnographic approaches, this study aims to examine the nature of informal bus-oriented modes of transport within Lagos and the extent to which they co-exist with, or resist, formal modes provided by the state. It also seeks to explore Lagosians' perceptions of transport issues within the city and how this is differentiated across various stakeholders in terms of socio-economic characteristics. Situated within the broader context of modernisation discourses of development, this research specifically draws on urban transport planning (Tolley and Turton, 1995) and debates around formal and informal service provisioning within the developing world (Sandaram, 2009).

A February 2010 judgment of the Delhi High Court called into question several assumptions underlying policy thinking on the cycle rickshaw sector. Examining these assumptions in the light of new research and advocacy efforts, this article considers the prospect of policy and
regulatory reform. With the cycle rickshaw sector as a case study, it argues that the punitive regulatory framework governing the sector embodies the dualist or even parasitic models that inform policy on informal services more broadly. Assessing the larger viability and
contribution of informal sector activities requires more attention to local and sector-specific micro-processes.

Through selected ethnographic approaches, this study aims to examine the nature of informal bus-oriented modes of transport within Lagos and the extent to which they co-exist with, or resist, formal modes provided by the state. It also seeks to explore Lagosians' perceptions of transport issues within the city and how this is differentiated across various stakeholders in terms of socio-economic characteristics. Situated within the broader context of modernisation discourses of development, this research specifically draws on urban transport planning (Tolley and Turton, 1995) and debates around formal and informal service provisioning within the developing world (Sundaram, 2009). Despite significant literature on formal and informal urban transport systems within Latin America and Asia (Gwilliam, 2003; Dimitriou, 2013; Vasconcellos, 2014), comparatively little attention has been paid to the African experience. Where attention has been paid, this has largely been from a purely technical standpoint, generating aggregate statistics, with little documentation of the perspectives of African people themselves. Justification for this research therefore comes in the opportunity to shed new light on how the complexities of these debates play out within the context of a major African city.

This paper discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) may influence travel behavior of an informal transport system, and whether and in which ways merging digital technologies represents disruption for a specific sociotechnical ensemble. For decades, ojek has been a form of informal passenger transport, based on motorcycles in Jakarta, and recently smartphone apps have become available in that sociotechnical arrangement. We randomly surveyed passengers and drivers in the central district, for both those who do and do not use these apps. Despite many similarities between both groups, the drivers who use smartphones for their trips reported higher daily incomes, longer average trip distances and a larger coverage area. Passengers using conventional ojek transport reported lower levels of both safety perception and satisfaction when compared to app-based ojek users. For both categories of user, ojek seems to compete with, complement, and be an alternative to bus rapid transit and the suburban rail system (KRL) in the area covered by our sample. The areas covered by regular buses and vans roughly match the origins and destinations of ojek trips.

This paper offers an alternative conceptualization of informality within the transport sector. While it shows that informal transport is a far from trivial component of urban economies, it also highlights the sometimes problematic use of informality to homogeneously describe various public transport modes within the Southeast Asian transport landscape. It initially reviews a number of contested assumptions in the informality discourse within the context of public transportation in developing cities. It then proposes the concept of indigenous transport as a potential alternative, arguing that such perspective may better acknowledge and describe the mode's local and vernacular qualities as well as its complementary and supplementary functions. For the purposes of this paper, indigenous transport is described to pertain to those modes that respond to local demand, evolved based on local conditions and endemic to local mobility cultures. The indigenous transport framework aims to elucidate the five key characteristics of indigenous transport modes from a transport user's perspective. This is supported by an empirical study conducted in three Southeast Asian developing cities of varying geographical scales, namely Baguio (Philippines), Bandung (Indonesia) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) to provide evidence that a transport user's prism will and can authentically present an alternative version of informality, and assist in painting an overall picture of the role of indigenous transport within the transport system of developing cities.

This study examines the role of an urban informal transport sub-sector; the motorcycle taxis (popularly called 'okada'), towards the provision of self-employment and income-generating opportunities for many of the urban unemployed in South West Nigeria. The data for the study was generated from a survey of 777 randomly selected auto cycle riders in two cities in Nigeria and the SPSS software aided data analyses. In addition to the descriptive analyses, two econometric models were specified and estimated using the OLS technique. The study revealed that the subsector is a high employer of young school leavers in the accident-prone job of okada riding. Earnings analyses show that 86% of the operators earn above the minimum wage level while human capital variables explain earnings distribution. Implications of the findings of the study point to the need for a more rigorous regulation of the sector to promote safety of operators and passengers.

This paper presents an innovative way of conducting on-board vehicle surveys for minibus taxis using a mobile app to collect route traces, stop locations and importantly individual trip boarding and alighting pairs. On-board surveys were carried out on a city-wide-basis by field teams making use of a mobile application for data collection on operations and passenger activity along an estimated 800 licensed minibus taxi routes in the Cape Town municipal area using a prescribed sampling technique. The core technology itself has already been presented in a paper by Ndibatya, Coetzee and Booysen (SATC, 2016), as well as a follow-up progress presentation by Coetzee (SATC, 2017). This paper is a follow-up on the work presented in 2016 and 2017 by Ndibatya et al (Ndibatya, Coetzee, and Booysen, 2017). It describes the methodology followed for the individual passenger boarding and alighting surveys for minibus taxis at an unprecedented scale and duration. The methodology has significantly advanced due to the ability to now capture the demographics of each passenger boarding and alighting on the vehicles surveyed. Further, this paper presents a number of innovative techniques to analyse and generate reports on the data using geospatial comparisons, machine learning, by means of a custom management tool developed in-house by GoMetro.

Paratransit forms the basis of public transport systems in many of worlds emerging cities. However, there is limited information available on the extent of operations, the route network and passenger demand. Manual passenger counting techniques alone do not provide sufficient information on the extent of network coverage and passenger turnover for the routes on a network. Exploring techniques and methodologies to collecting data on paratransit operations using mobile technology helps us get an informed picture of the transportation system, and helps us make smarter choices when it comes to improving the existing system. Application of mobile technology to collect paratransit data in emerging markets has enabled the development of new data sources. These data sources help discover the extent of network coverage and enable the profiling of routes on the network from the collected passenger information. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a methodology on the application of m...

The objective of this paper is to introduce the need of a new understanding and conceptualization for Urban Planning in the global south, with a special focus in the Latin American and Colombian context. It will study emergent transportation networks, always structurers of the urban space, as a lens to observe how informality, inverse urbanization and emergent orders can help understand the nature of cities in the region, and the global 'south' in general , together with the need of new ways of looking at them. The emergence of spontaneous, and decentralized, forms of order construction will be analyzed within the lines of New Institutional Economics (NIE). Here it will be discussed that the nature of institutional failure and the emergence of informal governance mechanisms adds to the debate of urban mobility planning and urbanism in general. Hypothesizing , whether informality, ingrained in Colombian cities is an expression of a reality of the impossibility of centralized planning for the urban space. Finally, the idea of assessing emergent informal transportation networks in Colombia, is also used as a base to analyze the broad concept of Urban Governance for the global south. Governance is understood here as the emergent evolution of institutions and organizations to solve problems in urban spaces, and which in many cases transgress what's mandated by formal regulation. Therefore, transgression is also analyzed as the processes of informality are linked to historical conditions in Colombian cities, which add a layer of complexity that is considered a staple of a new conceptu-alization of Urban Planning for southern cities.

Article Info Abstract Keywords: Binomial Logistic Regression Density Household Motorcycle Transportation In order to forecast and make provisions for future demand of motorcycle in Akure, there is a need to understand factors driving motorcycle ownership, therefore, this study examines factors which affect motorcycle ownership in Akure metropolis. Three different zones namely, Low Density (LD), Medium Density (MD) and High Density (HD) were considered,, both close-ended and open-ended questionnaire were administered to 900 households representing 75% of the total population. Using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16 data were analyzed and binomial logistic regression analysis was used in developing a model which showed that only academic qualification of household head, number of household members and average monthly income of household significantly influences motorcycle ownership across the zones at the 95% confidence level. Both average monthly income of household and academic qualification of household head had a negative influence on motorcycle ownership whereas number of household members had a positive relationship with motorcycle ownership. The results shows that there is a 1.43 times likelihood of owning a motorcycle with a unit increase in the number of household members, while there is a reduction in the likelihood of owning a motorcycle by 1.66 times and 2.17 times for a unit increase in the average monthly income and academic qualification of household head respectively. The results obtained can be used in developing policy framework to improve public transport and control motorcycle ownership in the city of Akure.

Lima, as the capital of Peru, has become its first megacity with more than 10 million people in an area that extends over 80 km in a North-South direction. As a city of this size, it faces complex mobility issues with a strong reliance on informal transport modes (buses, minibuses, and paratransit vehicles) due to the deterioration of its transit system quality during the 20th century. This paper examines the current urban situation in Lima through an analysis of the city’s structure, with an emphasis on its transport history and the resulting types of walking, transit, and car-oriented fabrics that can be identified. The mobility analysis was made through data collection, including daily trips by public and private modes, annual passenger kilometers and vehicle kilometers of travel, length of exclusive lanes for public transport and freeways, car and paratransit modes ownership, transport emissions, and safety. These data are used to position Lima in a comparative global context sh...

RESUMO: A história dos motoqueiros santomenses não é muito longa, mas o rápido crescimento do número de pessoas envolvidas neste sector informal de transportes levan-ta várias questões acerca do fenómeno e das consequências sociais e económicas com ele relacionadas. O presente artigo apresenta uma análise da ambiguidade desta profissão, a descrição dos principais problemas que dificultam a vida dos que decidiram dedicar-se à prestação deste serviço, uma breve abordagem acerca dos processos de organização entre os trabalhadores do sector e a apresentação de alguns factos das histórias de vida dos representantes desta profissão, tão precária e tão procurada. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Economia informal. Transporte informal. Motoqueiros. São Tomé e Príncipe. Introdução E pa, o problema que eu vejo é o seguinte: eu, como jovem… não é isso a vida que quero. (...) Eu, como jovem, tenho que arranjar outro serviço.

Preliminary research and baseline study report on the matatu workforce in Nairobi, the potential impact of the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit to the city, and policy on inclusion of matatu workers union representatives in the planning and implementation process.

Demand-responsive technology has long had theoretical potential in urban mobility (Jokinen, 2011), but the failure of microtransit companies in the US and UK should be noted as cautionary to the trial or implementation of demand-responsive services without adequate modelling. This paper attempts to produce a numerical model to the concept of &amp;quot;New Generation Services&amp;quot; outlined in the City of Cape Town MyCiti Business Plan 2018, or the &amp;quot;Hybrid Model&amp;quot; that has entered the current transport planning lexicon in South Africa since 2017. The authors aim to demonstrates a method for how detailed on-board survey data can be extrapolated and collated to prove the business case for minibus-taxi operators to shift from the current inefficient &amp;quot;load-and-go&amp;quot; operation to a more direct demand-responsive service. This paper presents a description of a methodology that is followed to capture test data, develop supply and demand models, run simulations and optimize the system to rationalize operations and business case for various operators. The numerical model is a demand and supply model, where the recommended fleet size is determined from the current passenger demand in the service network. In developing the demand and supply model, the data is obtained from onboard vehicle survey data. The model calculates total operating cost, revenue and carbon footprint of the current operations to the optimized and rationalized operations recommended in the model.

This study examines the role of an urban informal transport sub-sector; the motorcycle taxis (popularly called 'okada'), towards the provision of self-employment and income-generating opportunities for many of the urban unemployed in South West Nigeria. The data for the study was generated from a survey of 777 randomly selected auto cycle riders in two cities in Nigeria and the SPSS software aided data analyses. In addition to the descriptive analyses, two econometric models were specified and estimated using the OLS technique. The study revealed that the subsector is a high employer of young school leavers in the accident-prone job of okada riding. Earnings analyses show that 86% of the operators earn above the minimum wage level while human capital variables explain earnings distribution. Implications of the findings of the study point to the need for a more rigorous regulation of the sector to promote safety of operators and passengers.