Engaging Citizens in Improving Informal Transport

On my previous post I wrote about positive outcomes of surveying the informal transport network but also some pitfalls of representing it on static media, such as plans. As mentioned, improved knowledge for every stakeholder is empowering and brings the possibility to use and design the transport network in a more efficient way. Therefore, attending to the relative low-cost of undertakings like the ones presented and albeit weaknesses, the validity of this kind of approaches remains unchallenged. That being said, in this post I’ll argue that we should be rather developing a complementary strategy for information and communication technologies (ICT) dealing with the issues of informal public transport (IPT), beyond efficiency driven approaches, towards the engagement of citizens.

A bus in Bangladesh Photo by H.MASA (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Smartifying Informal Transit

In this post I’ll write about the intersection of information and communication technologies (ICT) with informal public transport (IPT), particularly at improving efficiency. I shortly present 2 similar case studies and I explore them in a critical way.

Public transport is a good example of a city infrastructure that works in a networked way, so it makes sense that improving communication and information within it potentiates the whole system and thus it is a case for application of modern ICT. Although there is more to public transportation than efficiency, lets first concentrate on this primary function.

Buses in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo by Marufish [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Is Informal Transit Smart?

In this post I’ll discuss qualities in informal transit that we could call smart and reframe them it in the discussion of smart cities.

With the rise of smart city discourses in the last years, there has been increased buzz arround the word smart but the mainstream idea of smart city is still a very contextualized concept beyond the general meaning of smartness. From a governance perspective, smart cities are used to designate an enhanced urban management which aims for improved life quality and sustainable development. From a technological perspective, the smart city arises from overlaying digital networks on the city’s infrastructure with the aim of optimizing urban flows and processes.

Rio de Janeiro’s Control Room. Source: Centro de Operações Rio

Because informal public transport (IPT) exists in contexts where information and communication technologies (ICT) are not so widespread and thus this kind of smartness doesn’t apply, it may be interesting to see how some of its qualities that differentiate it from formal transport systems are smart in the classic sense. This meaning has roughly to do with adequacy, efficiency, frugality, adaptation, contextuality, etc..

You will see that most of the attributes listed below come from IPT being a paratransit service and underling an informal free market economy. But this kind of smartness is also part of the sustainability toolbox, and that’s a good reason we should acknowledge it.

Why we should work on improving Informal Transit

An overloaded Jeepney (Phillipines). Photo by Keith Kristoffer Bacongco [CC BY 2.0]

If you’re familiar with city life in the global South, you probably know the relevance of the subject. Where the state fails to provide public transportation services or to issue suitable regulation and enforcement, the private initiative offers informal transportation services that can serve large parts of the population. It´s difficult to get accurate figures for modal share of informal public transport (IPT), but it is safe to say that it is one of the most used mode of transportation in many cities from the South. Just as an example, estimations put IPT responsible for 95% of the public transport trips in Dakar and approximately 75% in Manila and Mexico City (Cervero and Golub 2007). Informal transit is a vital service for the urban poor, giving them access to opportunities in locations far away from their residence. But while being very important for urban ecosystems and economies, IPT usually shows many issues that negatively affect the life of many. Following, a summary of the most cited problems:

What is Informal Transit?

Matatus in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by Albert Backer / CC BY-SA 3.0 (reframed)

For my first post I’ve chosen a not exciting but necessary topic: the definition of informal transit. I’ll also call it informal public transport (IPT), a more universal term. Although this is not central to this work, I want to critically explore how the word “informal” is used because it is one binary (formal-informal) that hides a much more complex and nuanced reality of which we should be aware.

In the context of the global South (an economic and political context), the World Bank defined IPT in 2002 as “Publicly available passenger transport service that is outside the traditional public transport regulatory system”. It sounds a quite precise definition but on the ground it holds less value as the situation is usually not totally formal or informal but something in-between. For example, when a transport exceeds the allowed maximum speed, is literally outside the regulation but the common sense tells us that it’s not helpful to automatically consider it a case of informality. On the other hand, if a transport is operating just partially outside the licensed route, you might see it as a case of IPT. So, an interpretation of the specific context becomes helpful in defining the problem.

There are of course many cases of “total” informality, that is, most basic regulation is not respected (such as a transport that operates without any required licence) but when addressing IPT not only these cases are worth of considering. You might want to take into account the “grey areas” as well. Furthermore, if we take the condition “outside regulation” very strictly, it means that in cases with non-existing or very weak regulation one could easily achieve a non-informal and therefore “formal” transport which would be similar to an informal one in a more demanding context. Maybe that’s why the World Bank mentioned the “traditional public transit regulatory system”, which obviously refers to the practices of developed countries.

So, we should never forget that the term IPT is being mostly used as a working definition for public transportation that operates significantly outside of an idealized and case-specific model which is mainly based on the values of the global North. This is the definition that for practical purposes I use here too, not trying to go much deep in regulation and compliance or enforcement details. Therefore IPT defines itself trough its specific properties in relation to an ideal model. For example, the mini-buses in Mexico City (called microbuses or peseros), although becoming ever more formal in the strict sense (compliance in route-licences and applied fares), don’t have regular schedules like it would be expected in similar systems and thus they fall on the group of IPT.

A Microbus in Mexico City. Photo by Roadmr, CC-BY-SA-3.0

To keep the full spectrum in mind, we should not forget that we can have different scales and levels of service in IPT (from rickshaws operating door to door to big buses operating on regular routes). And for disambiguation purposes, the term paratransit is used mostly in the USA independently from regulation matters to define transport that is publicly used but has no strict route or schedule (something between taxis and mass transit), which if often a feature from IPT systems and therefore the two terms often overlay eachother (I’ll use it separatly, to designate the functional traits). This shows the importance of going beyond value based definitions (e.g. “does it fall short of our traditional model?”) and defining subjects with their qualities.