Taken for a Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Urban Informality ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
Informal Economies ◽  
Political Economy Analysis ◽  
Analytical Power

The chapter starts by describing public transport in Dar es Salaam as ‘functional chaos’. It then critically reviews two thematic literatures, on African cities and on their informal economies, to reveal that references to chaos, dystopia, and their opposites, order and functionalism, are common. The key argument is that a highly contextual understanding of urban informality and of how African cities work is required to avoid overly deterministic structural accounts and romantic celebration of African agency without due attention to structural constraints. The chapter presents the book’s approach: namely a political-economy analysis, centred on class analysis and wary of automatically reading off the political interests of actors from their class position. It argues that neoliberalism and post-socialism are key to understanding Tanzania and public transport in Dar es Salaam, and calls for grounding ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ in a particular context while retaining the analytical power of the concept of neoliberalism.

Taken For A Ride

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
The Political ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Informal Economies

The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system’s journey from public to private provision. The book investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport, the political motivations behind these, and their inability to address its problems. The analysis documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector, and how their salience explains many of the inefficiencies of public transport. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to political organization and unionization, which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial scholarship on economic informality and the urban experience in developing countries, and its failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualized study of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’.

Road Safety in Developing Countries - The Case of Transportation Management in Dar Es Salaam City

2012 ◽  
Vol 178-181 ◽  
pp. 1806-1814
Author(s):  
Philemon Kazimil Mzee ◽  
Yan Chen
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Road Safety ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
High Growth ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
Transportation Management ◽  
Transport Services

Countries of the developing world are characterized by rapid urbanization, high growth rates in traffic and congestion and decreasing regulation of public transport. Because the majority of the developing world's inhabitants are dependent on public transport services for their mobility needs, the need for safe, effective and efficient public transport is essential to ensure adequate, affordable, accessibility and the continuing sustainable development of livelihoods in the rural and urban. Finally, recommendations are made to reduce both the severity and number of public transport accidents in the future. This paper highlights the historical road safety and the transportation management in Dar es Salaam. In the field of road traffic control and management, the primary policy objective is to develop appropriate institutional and organizational arrangement towards further efficient road use.

Activity Participation and Perceptions on Informal Public Transport and Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam

2020 ◽  
Vol 2674 (11) ◽  
pp. 573-583
Author(s):  
Lucy Joseph ◽  
An Neven ◽  
Karel Martens ◽  
Opportuna Kweka ◽  
Geert Wets ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Transport ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Geographical Information Systems ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Activity Participation ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Relative Contribution

This paper seeks to understand participation in out-of-home activities by inhabitants in Dar es Salaam, and their perceptions toward informal public transport (IPT) and bus rapid transit (BRT) in supporting these activities. Without fixed schedules, IPT (e.g., minibuses, motorcycles, and tricycles) is used as a means of transport for different trips. However, IPT is burdened by poor roads, traffic congestion, and high transport demand. Many developing cities are seeking to replace IPT with formal BRT lines. However, little is known in relation to the ability of IPT and BRT to support out-of-home activity participation of the inhabitants. This paper reports on a study in Dar es Salaam exploring the relative contribution of each type of service. The study took place before the opening of BRT, and encompasses focus group discussions, participatory geographical information systems, and questionnaires carried out in two study zones: one close to a BRT corridor and the other in a peri-urban location. The findings show that IPT was used to support participation in daily activities like work, education, shopping, and social matters; and was perceived to be flexible in providing access to both high and low density unplanned settlements. The BRT was viewed to benefit specific groups of people, especially individuals working in permanent offices in and around the city center, particularly professional workers. This paper sheds light on how the two systems were perceived by the local people and can inform policy makers about possible improvements in public transport systems to support activity participation of their inhabitants.

scholarly journals Challenges of Institutional Coordination in Planning for Public Transportation in East Africa: Analysis Based on Perceptions of Stakeholders in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Kanyama
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Public Transportation ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Analysis Of Results

<p><em>This paper examines the challenges of institutional coordination in planning for public transport in Dar</em><em>-</em><em>es-Salaam and Nairobi. Sources of data included literature review from published and unpublished documents, interviews with institutions involved in public transportation and workshops. The </em><em>data was coded and analyzed using structural-functional and content analysis.</em><em> Analysis of results showed a number of challenges that constrain institutional coordination in planning for public transport in the cities of Dar-es-salaam and Nairobi. Those challenges are inherently embedded in the institutional, political, cultural, economic and technological conditions of Tanzania and Kenya. This paper recommends establishment of a framework for institutional coordination in planning for public transport suited to circumstances of each of these countries. This will be a tool to address uncontrolled fragmentation of public transport agreements across different agencies, and a guide to different sectors to pursue individual public transport initiatives within the agreed policy objectives. Good governance and leadership principles should be central attributes in the framework for institutional coordination with emphasis on democratic participation and the development of partnerships between private and public sectors and citizens in planning for public transport.</em><em></em></p>

scholarly journals East Africa’s Policy and Stakeholder Integration of Informal Operators in Electric Mobility Transitions—Kigali, Nairobi, Kisumu and Dar es Salaam

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1703
Author(s):  
Jakub Galuszka ◽  
Emilie Martin ◽  
Alphonse Nkurunziza ◽  
Judith Achieng’ Oginga ◽  
Jacqueline Senyagwa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Constraints ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Electric Mobility ◽  
East African ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Stakeholder Integration ◽  
Start Ups ◽  
Sampling Approach

Electric mobility is beginning to enter East African cities. This paper aims to investigate what policy-level solutions and stakeholder constellations are established in the context of electric mobility (e-mobility) in Dar es Salaam, Kigali, Kisumu and Nairobi and in which ways they attempt to tackle the implementation of electric mobility solutions. The study employs two key methods including content analysis of policy and programmatic documents and interviews based on a purposive sampling approach with stakeholders involved in mobility transitions. The study findings point out that in spite of the growing number of policies (specifically in Rwanda and Kenya) and on-the-ground developments, a set of financial and technical barriers persists. These include high upfront investment costs in vehicles and infrastructure, as well as perceived lack of competitiveness with fossil fuel vehicles that constrain the uptake of e-mobility initiatives. The study further indicates that transport operators and their representative associations are less recognized as major players in the transition, far behind new e-mobility players (start-ups) and public authorities. This study concludes by identifying current gaps that need to be tackled by policymakers and stakeholders in order to implement inclusive electric mobility in East African cities, considering modalities that include transport providers and address their financial constraints.

The New Face of Neoliberalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Public Transport ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Dar Es Salaam ◽  
Bus Rapid Transit ◽  
Rapid Transit ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government

This chapter focuses on DART, a Bus Rapid Transit project (BRT): the new face of public transport in Dar es Salaam since operations started in 2016. A PPP funded by the World Bank, DART aimed to transform public transport through large-scale infrastructural work and the introduction of new buses, phasing out daladala from the city’s main public transport routes. The chapter challenges the presentation of BRT as the ‘win–win’ solution to tackling the crisis of public transport in developing countries. A contextualized political economy of DART highlights why the project proceeded so slowly (implementation began in 2002), documenting the capacity of some Tanzanian actors to resist. Tensions over the displacement of existing paratransit operators by foreign investors, the inclusion of the existing public transport workforce, employment destruction, affordability of the new service, and their management by the government are a window into ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and post-socialism in Tanzania.

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