A comparative study of public transport systems in developing countries
The large and mostly impoverished populations of African cities are dependent on public transport to provide them with accessibility and mobility. In most African cities, private vehicle ownership and traffic is increasing rapidly, scheduled or formal public transport systems are declining or have disappeared altogether and the unscheduled or informal Para-transit systems that have replaced them are unsafe and offer a low quality service. The problem with public transport planning in most African cities is that public transport is either poorly planned or not planned at all. This is due to the fact that there is a lack of adequate information and planning framework to guide decision makers and that they either select inappropriate systems based on those used in developed countries or allow private operators to decide. It is the responsibility of government to ensure that public transport systems meet the needs of the communities they serve and political decision-makers urgently need to make the right decisions for the development of public transport. Precise and relevant performance indicators and statistics will give a clear overview of the public transport systems of cities and will help to monitor the benefits of implementing efficient public transport systems. There is therefore a need to develop a methodology to assess public transport systems in African cities. The main aim of this study is to describe, discuss, and compare the public transport systems in developing countries. The methodology will be based on a set of performance indicators and related benchmarks that can be used to evaluate the public transport system of a city against certain goals. This study also describes the current existing public transport systems and their characteristics, as well as findings on the application of the methodology in Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The literature review aims to identify the characteristics of public transport systems and to develop a methodology that can be used to describe, discuss and compare public systems. It is based on studies that have been done on the characteristics of public transport systems. The first part of the literature review examines various studies and papers on public transport to determine which components of the public transport system are important and is followed by a more detailed discussion on the characteristics of these components.
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