The capital
of Ghana (Accra), according to the World Bank has a GDP of 3 billion dollars
and is developing very rapidly according to a radio-concentric model. However,
in this metropolis of 4.5 million inhabitants, there is no mass transport
system. The public transport network is based primarily on "trotro"
minibuses operated by small-scale operators.
Within the
framework of the Ghana Urban Mobility and Accessibility Project (GUMAP),
financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and
implemented by the Ghanaian Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development
(MLGRD), Transitec has been mandated to implement a number of activities
related to the improvement of urban mobility in Greater Accra (urban mobility
planning, regulation of public transport, traffic and parking management, data
collection, etc.) In March 2021, two technical assistances were launched to recommend
improvements in the regulation of the sector, in order to improve the public
transport services:
- First,
a mapping of the trotro network - Transitec has partnered with Transport for Cairo (TfC), which is using a mobile application and on-board surveyors to collect spatial
data in real time. This project is a follow-up to the Accra
Mobile project carried out in 2016 by the city of Accra and Transitec (with
AFD funding), which enabled the mapping of approximately 300 trotro routes.
Training of heads of transport department from the municipalities in the
Greater Accra area will also ensure that the data collected is regularly
updated, enabling the municipalities to better regulate the supply of public
transport services and improve upon its quality.
- The
second assistance involves the study of the performance of the trotro, taxi and
okada (mototaxi) network, with a view to propose possible improvements such as
a shift to scheduled services (as opposed to the current fill-and-go system).
This will involve the collection of socio-economic data on all actors in the
sector (drivers, collectors, feeders, porters, vendors, maintenance agents,
mechanics, spare parts vendors, etc.) as well as on users (origin-destination,
travel time). This information will serve as a basis for the development of a
pilot programme for the transition to scheduled operation. For this study,
Transitec has partnered with Organisation
Development Africa (ODA) and the Global
Labor Institute (GLI). A similar project was carried out in 2019 by the
City of Cape Town (South Africa) with the support of ODA and Transitec (see video).
These two
technical assistances will lead to a third study on the renewal of the trotro
fleet, which aims to introduce higher capacity fleets of vehicles that are
safer, less fuel consuming and less polluting.