#41 Assets not problems
Getting to the meat of the matter
Hey Friend,
It’s been a moment. I hope this letter finds you well.
Welcome back to your occasional newsletter on innovations in informal transportation.
What’s the occasion, you ask?
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Semaine de la Mobilité durable et du Climat (Climate and Sustainable Mobility Week) in Dakar, Senegal. It’s part of the runup of events to COP27. Transportation is going to be heavy on the agenda in this year’s conference of parties, or so I hear.
I won’t be at Sharm El Sheikh myself. If you’re going to be there, keep a lookout for any discussions on informal transportation. I think it is going to be critical.
I’ve got a pressing idea I need your feedback on, but let me get through a few notes on Dakar and then share what’s on my mind. I promise they are all related.
Getting down in Dakar
Dakar did not disappoint.
I was stoked that informal transportation, or “artisanal transportation” as the French like to call it, was on the agenda and represented in most of the plenaries and populated many of the breakouts in Dakar.
For example, I moderated a panel of the Digital Transport for Africa (DT4A) Innovation Challenge Winners: KhartouMap from Sudan, AddisMap from Ethiopia, eWarren from Côte d’Ivoire, and GoMetro from South Africa.
I don’t think the session was recorded, but I’ll post a link if it is.
The best part is that “artisanal transportation” is in the middle of the Déclaration de Dakar. (It may even be the center of gravity.)
Recommendation #6 of 10 goes as follows:
R6. la reconnaissance de la place de l’offre de transport dite « artisanale » dans la satisfaction de la demande ainsi que le soutien à la professionnalisation des acteurs et la modernisation de leur activité;
As best as google can translate it, R6 recognizes “the place of the so-called “artisanal” transport offers in meeting (transportation) demand.” It also calls for “support for the professionalization of players and the modernization of their activity.”
R7 and R8, which I read as still connected to artisanal transportation, call for decarbonization through the adoption of clean energy sources and modernization of the fleet through an Africa-centered ecosystem of clean technologies.
Hear! Hear!
Car rapide
What’s informal transportation in Senegal? It’s the car rapide, of course!
Like its cousins, Nairobi’s matatu, Manila’s jeepney, and the chicken bus, the car rapide is exuberantly, gloriously decorated. Behold:
You can read more about the story of the car rapide in this excellent piece by Beetle Holloway in Culture Piece: Dakar’s Car Rapides: A Symbol of the Senegalese Capital.
Holloway describes how they get painted:
In the shadow of the shabby Gare Lat Dior in downtown Plateau, two head painters and a team of boisterous young apprentices transform vehicles in exchange for 15,000 CFA ($26). “Owners drop them off, give instructions, and then we paint,” says a boyish Moussa as he splashes a thick enamel coat onto the inside of the tyres. However, these instructions are usually limited to adding the customary transports en commun slogan as well as the name of the owner’s chosen marabout as a mark of respect. Then it’s down to the painters’ imagination.
For a country that is 95 percent Muslim, this naturally involves many Islamic references, such as Begue Fallou (Love Fallou) or Al-Hamdoulilah (Thank you God). Senegalese flags are etched above headlights. Eyes are added to bonnets and tails to exhaust pipes, “giving the vehicle spirit”. Images of horses, lions and sparrow hawks jostle for prominence with pineapples, palm trees and football emblems. Floral patterns stand to attention with stars and colourful geometry.
Inside, photos of famous footballers, marabouts and lutteurs (wrestlers) are plastered on the walls. Musical klaxons are custom fitted. Pieces of cloth dangle from the wing mirrors. Their significance? “They’re [just] for decoration,” replied a bemused Moussa.
Also, check out this feature from NPR.
Par for informal transportation, the country is trying to ban them cars rapides. The self-imposed deadline was 2018.
Also par for informal transportation, the car rapide is resilient.
Conseil Exécutif des Transports Urbains de Dakar (CETUD), does have plans.
Check out EcoCar Solaire.
By using innovative and climate-friendly technologies, Eco Car Solaire aims at converting Dakar’s famous icons – the artistically painted ‘cars rapides’ – into a solar-powered, environmentally friendly means of transportation, as well as save the jobs that depend on them.
The solution proposed by Eco Car Solaire, a project initiated by mandu|architexture & urbanizm, is to convert the cars rapides into solar-powered vehicles. A conversion kit developed in collaboration with the Swiss institute Ökozentrum, a pioneer in the area of e-mobility, will enable local mechanics to convert the cars rapides into cars solaires.
Hear! Hear!
On to the meat of the matter…
Dear informal transport geek friend, I’ve come to a realization.
You know how, at the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation, we like to say informal transportation is “treated as local problems rather than assets”?
I’ve emphasized the “local” in that to contrast with “global.” I’ve used it to call attention to informal transportation as a global phenomenon that serves people where they are.
We say “assets” vs. “problems” to help move the narrative away from the problematizing frame. (That “asset-framing” approach was inspired by my former colleague, Trabian Shorters, and the work of BME.)
But within that phrase is the word that matters; that is the key to transforming the sector.
The word is “assets.”
Assets matter. Assets organize systems.
To transform makeshift mobility, we pay attention to and invest in the assets of informal transportation. The vehicles are the material assets, and the micro- and small-enterprises are the organizational assets.
Let me explain.
Paying attention
In Dakar, I listened to Thinus Booysen’s presentation on Electrification, Data and Artisanal Transport in Africa: Data needed to plan for the electrification of paratransit. Thinus is a Professor in Engineering and the Research Chair in the Internet of Things at Stellenbosch University. His presentation was on the data we need to plan for the electrification of informal transportation. In this specific case, the minibus taxis of SA.
(In case you’re wondering, he says it’s “TEA-nis, like Venus with a T, the h is only decorative.”)
One of the main takeaways is that we need vehicle-based data to fully understand how to electrify (vehicles and infra) informal transportation effectively. Passenger-sourced GTFS data (a.k.a. GPS route readings from smartphones)—the data that is readily available—is inadequate. We need more precise vehicle-based data to understand how informal transport behaves and make operational improvements and infrastructure investments.
Vehicle-based data, collected at shorter intervals, can tell us where the vehicle (and the driver) stops and dwells and how much energy they use. That tells us how productive each kilometer and each unit of energy is. That tells us where it makes sense to put chargers. That also tells us the correct price point for an electric minibus to justify replacement.
You can read more about the research via Why taxi tracking trumps tracking passengers with apps in planning for the electrification of Africa’s paratransit.
(You should also read about the data collection methods for informal transportation and their associated challenges in Thinus’ Computing our way to electric commuting in Africa: The data roadblock.)
Investing
“Ok, I get it, Benjie; we need more data.”
I know you get it, but let me drive home the point of how incomplete our data is and how critical asset-based (vehicle and operator) information is.
Justin Coetzee of GoMetro/GoAscendal says he has a slide showcasing three separate minibus taxi drivers and their vehicles so his audience can understand their operations.
I riff on it below.
Space
Imagine we have data for three car rapide drivers and their routes.
Driver A, Driver B, and Driver C (and their vehicles) take the same general route. They have the same origin and destination (start and end point) and the same route length.
(I’m sorry I don’t have time to create graphics for this. Maybe next time.)
Money
We can layer how much each driver earned for the day.
Driver A’s total take was 600 francs, Driver B took home 650 francs, and Driver C had 1,100 francs.
Who would we say is most productive? Would it be Driver C?
They all ran the same route, but Driver C took home the most money.
But what about time and frequency?
Time
What if Driver A worked 8 hours, Driver B 10, and Driver C worked 16 hours?
Who is most productive?
Taking income over hours, Driver A is the most productive. (A=75, B=65, C=68.5).
Is that enough information?
Vehicle
But what if we learn that Driver A’s vehicle is 20 years old, Driver B’s is 10, and Driver C’s is five years old?
And what if we learn that Driver A only drove 8 hours because his vehicle broke down and had to bring to the shop for repairs?
Who is most productive?
More importantly, how can we make all of them more productive?
Preachy point
What does all that layered data tell us?
Perhaps:
Driver A could be more productive if he had a newer vehicle.
Driver C might be overtaxing his newer vehicle.
Driver C could learn operational efficiencies from Driver A.
Driver A could benefit from an incentive program to replace his vehicle.
Driver B had the best work-life balance. (Maybe.)
All of the above is just a thought exercise, of course. But more data on the assets of informal transportation and how they perform (in space, money, and time) can give us better insights and lead to better approaches.
More importantly, it gives drivers and owners a better understanding of how they can improve their own operations.
That last point is essential.
Data for the operators
I’ve been bothered that collecting GTFS data on informal transportation only serves two clients: the passenger/rider (for journey planning) and the public agency (for system insights and management).
The GTFS data doesn’t do much for the informal transportation operator. They know their routes. But telemetry from their vehicles could lead to operational improvements and better revenues. It would help them manage their own assets.
In another conversation I had in Dakar, Climate Champion and Transport for Cairo founder Mohamed Hegazy made the point that taking an Asset-Based Framework to informal transportation could also give us the right tools to manage a distributed, emergent, dynamic system.
Informal transportation policy as SME policy
Rather than simply trying to manage informal transportation AS a transportation system, we could use and adapt policy tools for managing micro-, small- and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Hegazy pointed out that many countries have had quite a bit of success in protecting public health and safety (esp. in food systems) using policies focused on improving the operations of SMEs.
(One other way to look at this is to focus on the agents of the system—the vehicles, the drivers and owners, the firms—to improve the system.)
Floating the idea
All those conversations and discussions motivated me to float around this idea of an ASSET-BASED APPROACH in the hopes that it would filter its way to COP27.
I’ll tell you more about that in my next letter. Meanwhile, leave a comment, and I’ll be happy to send you a copy of the three-pager.
Ok, this letter has gone on too long, I think. Apologies, it has been a while since you heard from me.
I leave you with Taxi Recap’s short interview with Caroline Montishawa, a minibus taxi operator in SA.
Caroline reminds us that makeshift mobility operators are entrepreneurs and business people. They want to do better:
“The plan is to have a growing business, diversify, in order to address the travel needs and demands of ‘batho ba gaSeleka’. I would also like to be developed further, with some management training, in order to adequately respond to future business challenges. I also would like to develop my leadership abilities in order to continue influencing taxi industry decision-making,” she says.
That’s it for now. Catch you again when the wind blows.
I’m Benjie de la Peña, and I’m the CEO of the Shared-Use Mobility Center. I co-founded Agile City Partners, and I am the Chair of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation.
Interesting discussion, Benje. We did some work a few years back tracking vehicles in Victoria, Australia with a plan to calculate fuel consumption and emissions based on inputs such as vehicle year, make, speed, topography, acceleration etc. It was a lot of data and even then we lacked important inputs (that influence efficiency) such as the condition of the engine and the tyre pressure). There are always limits to this. However, generally speaking, we found efficiency gains would come from just a few standard improvements, which meant after collecting data for a while, you didn't need any more. In your case, you're looking for individualised improvements based on routing and so forth, so that's another level of complexity again. However, maybe this work would have the same outcome: that is, a few general tips for improvement help most drivers.
Kevin