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:

• lack of efficiency, mostly small capacity vehicles in a fragmented and unorganized network
• unreliability with no fixed routes, stops, schedules and fares
• safety, reckless driving exacerbated by high competition for passengers and unsafe vehicles
• high emissions due to low technical standards
• lack of self regulation, no coverage of less profitable routes, oversupply and congestion generator
• Operators often organised in cartel-like associations, untransparent practices, avoidance of tax collection, exploitative contracts with drivers

Matatus in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by Dillon Marsh [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Public institutions, media and other road users blame informal transport for the traffic problems in their cities which shows the bad reputation they have. There are several strategies for the state to deal with the Informal operators, usually related to the level of formality, from outlawing to recognition and regulation that is then enforced with more or less strength (see Cervero and Golub 2007). In this processes, negotiations between operators and regulators are always difficult moments of struggle. The overwhelming complexity and lack of information about the situation on the ground discourages and reduces the capacity of governments to act (those are often institutionally weak). In some cases, transport operators associate, become influential and successfully block ot lobby government to protect their business. For these reasons many municipalities consider to make a “tabula rasa” from this reality and avoid making compromises with private interests that later on hostage public interest (see Flores-Dewey and Zegras, 2012). Different strategies for State intervention were already object of many research works. What in alternative I consider interesting to explore is the bypassing of the state role and the improvement of service from within trough its users (elaborated further ahead).

Cycle rickshaws in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo by ~Pyb (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0]

There are still other kinds of interventions in this sector, with more supportive roles of the state, like programs that improve drivers training, or alleviate poverty within workers (for example helping them buying vehicles and thus escaping exploitation from lenders) but falls outside of the subject my writing.

Transportation is an area with high visibility in the official growth agenda and a traditional field where municipalities have high stakes and claim political achievements. Thus there is some pressure to tackle informal transport, and especially to substitute these services with public projects. In most recent years, shiny Bus Rapid Transit systems became widely popular in developing cities. Such mega projects are in fact generally beneficial for users, at least in economic cost-benefit analysis (see this report from EMBARQ, p. 10-18), by saving time, reducing transport costs, reducing accidents, etc.. So, while being perhaps the most effective response to urban mobility problems, it’s simply not possible to implement extensive formal transportation networks overnight, especially because heavy funding is still necessary for large scale projects and financial sustainability is not easly achievable. Besides that, projects that require new infrastructure building in consolidated urban fabric (the case in the global South), bring a whole array of difficulties and negative impacts not to be underestimated. Also, fur such projects great institutional capabilities are necessary, which takes time to form or requires some sort of outsourcing.

Transmilénio in Bogotá. Photo by Pedro Felipe [CC BY-SA 3.0]

Even as these success stories such as Bogota’s Transmilenio absorb our attention and fuel our rationale of “big solutions”, the majority of urban mobility in those cities still happens through other mediums like IPT. For example, when Transmilenio opened in 2001, private bus daily ridership (here considered IPT) dropped from 5 to 4 millions in 2005 and while BRT was achieving 1 million (number from 2006; in 2013 1,6m). So, this massive project, a role model for many cities, only affected one fifth of bus rides (still very impressive).

Just a small reminder: the focus in public transportation is what should never be lost because it is a sustainable and inclusive way of transport. Today, many visions for urban mobility everywhere still prioritize the private car with costly and devastating infrastructure projects. Cities in the global South also pursue this idea of modernity often (see Knoflacher et al. 2007), at the same ignoring or even trying to shut down informal public transport, in part due to its not modern aesthetics. Instead, they should be thinking how to leapfrog the automotive city and for this informal transit is rather part of the short-term answer. Afterall it’s filling the gap that the formal sector wasn’t able to fill and therefore it’s utility is uncontested, especially for the less well-off.

The second floor of the periferico in Mexico City absorbed 40% of the transport budget during 6 years. Finished in 2006 / 2009. Photo by vladimix [CC BY-SA 2.0]

In conclusion, given the importance of informal transport in urban ecosystems, we should be addressing its many flaws because new integral solutions are achievable only on the very long run. State intervention sure plays the most important role but many times is not capable of delivering necessary results and therefore we should look to other possibilities of action based on passenger empowerment.