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March 16, 2015

A TRANSIT APP FOR NAIROBI’S INFORMALPUBLIC TRANSPORT

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Nairobi has its first matatu transit app

China wind farms beat US nuclear plants

Traffic safety creates cycling cities 4

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4 Photo: Mikael Colville-Andersen/Wikimedia

Two weeks ago, the World Bicycle Forum in Medellín, Colombia brought together more than 4,000 attendees from across the globe to discuss the challenges and opportunities of urban cycling.

Many have praised the event for its ability to bring a wide swath of constituencies together and iden-tify key outcomes.

Cities and citizens are turning to the bicycle for good reasons. The bicycle offers a healthy form of mo-bility that cuts the need for car travel and reduces emissions. But there remains a major obstacle to establishing cycling as key mode of travel: designing safer infrastructure that all people feel comfort-able using.

How urban design at the street and city levels enables safer cycling

A workshop co-hosted by EMBARQ and the Cycling Embassy of Denmark at the World Bicycle Forum focused on the design principles and conditions that enable safer cycling. Participants drew lessons from global research on urban design, road safety audits and inspections in cities on the ground, and academic research on safety and cycling.

Traffic safety is the key to a cycling city

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At the city level, a cohesive network of bicycle facilities that connects parks, streets, water-fronts, and other vital corridors is necessary for ensuring safe cycling conditions. Copen-hagen’s well-known network is a great example of this kind of comprehensive planning. A similar network is emerging inMinneapolis, where on-street buffered and protected bicycle lanes are expanding the city’s already renowned off-street trail network. Bogotá, Colombia has nearly 392 km of bicycle lanes, 232 km of which were built during the Enrique Peña-losa administration from 1998 to 2001. According to the recently released bicycle account for the city, cycling in Bogotá has steadily increased from around 0.5 percent of daily trips in 1996 to 6 percent in 2014. Overall, in fact, Latin American cities actually have some of the most extensive cycling infrastructure outside of Europe. A recent report by the Inter-Amer-ican Development Bank and Despacio indicates that Latin America’s 56 largest cities have a combined network of 2,513 km of bicycle lanes between them.

At the street level, physically segregating bike lanes—with bollards, curbs, or raised tracks—can create safer conditions for cyclists. These concepts have already been put into practice and their successes are documented in city and national guides, like Copen-hagen’s Focus on Cycling and the Netherlands’ CROW Design Manual for Bicycle Traffic. Increasingly, these guides are becoming more popular at a global scale, from the United States to Turkey. In Brazil, Rio de Janeiro has helped reduce conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists by raising the bike lane and moving it behind a bus stop refuge. This design strategy is also recommended in a guide on cycling design prepared by EMBARQ Brazil.

Unsafe intersections still often pose a threat to cyclists

Yet with protected lanes, problems can arise at intersections and access points where mo-tor vehicles turn or enter into areas with pedestrians or cyclists. In Mexico City, a prime example of safer street design can be found on Avenida Eduardo Molina, where 20 km of one-directional protected bicycle lanes line both sides of the street, across from a center-median bus rapid transit (BRT) and rebuilt sidewalks. Although some cities have installed bi-directional lanes, the one-directional lanes are usually preferable, as they do not induce unexpected counterflow bicycle traffic at intersections. Mexico benefits from having both a city-level bicycle strategy, developed by the Secretary of Environment, and a national level guide called Ciclociudades, led by ITDP.

Another way to improve safety at intersections is to provide two-step turns, in which cy-clists do not actually make a left hand turn in one move, but move instead to the intersect-ing street and wait for the signal to proceed. A study from Beijing shows that the introduc-tion of two-step turns led to a 24 percent reduction in conflicts and crashes. Moreover, efforts that raise visibility between bicyclists and motor vehicle drivers will reduce the chance of impact.

These aren’t the only tools that can help produce a safe, comfortable environment for cy-clists, but they do represent an important starting point. While other strategies should be considered, cities should recognize that lowering traffic volumes and speeds is essential to ensuring greater safety and higher rates of cycling.

Using the World Bicycle Forum as a springboard for global action

Ultimately, safe cycling design is about developing a system that people will use. Consid-ering the engagement and energy at this year’s World Bicycle Forum, and the expected progress we’ll see at next year’s forum in Santiago, Chile, this vision may not be that far off from becoming reality.

6 Photo: Hansueli Krapf/Wikimedia

Nairobi has its first matatu transit app

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Our company (Transit App) has a simple man-tra: public transit should be more accessible.

After spending the last few years reducing commute times in some of the world’s largest metropolii — Paris, New York, London — our riders have shown us how to best deliver on that prom-ise.

With millions of commuters relying on our app to improve their trips, it’s our job to get access to the highest quality transit data available.

Up until now, we’ve had a pretty standard operat-ing procedure whenever we launch a new city:

First, partner with a local transit agency. Second, acquire their open data. Third, compress the hell out of that data. Fourth, adapt the design of the app to that specific market. And finally, we release it—relaying all that info to users in the fastest, most intuitive way possible.

Local transit agencies are our best friends. By opening their data, agencies empower us to cre-ate a better rider experience in almost one hun-dred cities.

But what do you do in a city where there isn’t an agency to work with? What do you do when there’s no data to access?

How do you optimize a transit system when it doesn’t technically exist?

Enter Nairobi.

Nairobi, Kenya boasts a population of more than three million. To give you an idea of it’s size, it’s a bit bigger than Chicago, Toronto, and Madrid.

In Nairobi, private car ownership isn’t the norm: the bulk of Nairobi’s citizens rely on public transit. But when Nairobi’s formal bus system collapsed in the 1990s, the government failed to do anything about it.

So without a formal urban planning strategy, an enterprising group of Kenyans sought to fill the void.

The result was a crazy, lawless, and über-popular mode of transportation:

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The Kenyan Matatu.

Matatus are small buses that carry anywhere between 14 and 25 passengers. The vehicles are leased by teams of two: a driver and a “tout”. The tout is responsible for collecting fares; the driver for getting passengers to their destination as quickly as possible.

And with more than 20,000 independent matatus in Nairobi, the pressure to maximize revenue is intense.

Hence the beautiful chaos of Nairobi’s roads: Matatu drivers will do anything to bypass traf-fic — weaving in and out of lanes, hopping up onto

sidewalks, chasing ambulanc-es… you know. The usual.

They also have a bad habit of disregarding road closures. That is, they did, until Nairobi construction crews developed extremely high-tech tactics to prevent matatus from ruining their freshly paved roads.

Without government oversight, it’s left to individual matatu op-erators to determine their own routes, fares, and marketing strategies.

There isn’t any official agency logo and colour scheme for

matatus, and with so many of them competing for busi-ness, the free market incen-tivizes matatu operators to brand their vehicles with their own special touch.

It isn’t easy to get commut-ers’ attention in bustling traffic. It’s even harder to get them to board the ve-hicle. That’s why, in the cutthroat world of Nairobi transit, there is but one commercial imperative: pimp your ride, or die.

Matatu teams will ornament their buses with flam-boyant paint jobs, televisions, and sound systems. Some matatus even have on-board WiFi.

But the only surefire way to attract a loyal rider-ship is to give your matatu a memorable slogan.

“Neon lights and graffiti drawings of American rappers colour the matatus, along with slogans ranging from ‘Jesus Saves All’ to ‘Baby Got Back’. Lost in this disorienting scene, I allow myself to be hauled by the bicep into a matatu emblazoned with the slogan ‘We Be Jammin’. My feet are barely inside before the matatu pulls away.”

Matatus have become a staple of Kenyan cul-

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ture. And riding in style is one of the best ways a trendsetting young commuter can distinguish themselves from the achromatic hoi polloi. With charming names like “Big Poppa”, “Mada Gascar”, or “Bazooka”, no matatu ride is ever the same.

The matatu system is vibrant and bursting with life. But it’s also incredibly chaotic. Which makes navigating through it a pain in the ass.

Being headquartered in Montreal, we’re used to looking up a bus schedule and hopping on what-ever ride comes in the right direction bearing the appropriate route number. If you live in the West, your experience is probably similar. But in Nairobi, things aren’t so straightforward. Commuters have to figure out everything for themselves.

Travelers rely on word-of-mouth to learn where to catch the bus, and which bus to catch. Routes are refined through a process of trial-and-error — an especially tricky task if any transfers are required en route.

Worse yet, even when a reliable route is mapped out, commuters have no assurances about fares, especially if it rains. According to one Nairobi na-tive, “Matatu fares are more emotional than the stock market,” making Uber surge pricing seem comparatively merciful.

Altogether, it shouldn’t come to you as a surprise that IBM has rated the commuter experience in Nairobi as one of the most painful in the world.

Luckily, reducing commuter pain is our modus operandi.

It also helps that we’re a bit crazy.

THE DIGITAL MATATUS PROJECT

In 2014, a research collaboration between the Uni-versity of Nairobi, Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Groupshot, and MIT’s Civic Design Lab yielded a project dubbed “Digital Matatus”. Their goal was to develop a better understanding of Nairobi’s informal transit system.

To get the data, a team of volunteers were armed with GPS-tracking cellphones, and told to ride the matatus as usual.

Using that raw data, researchers cobbled together an exhaustive list of matatus routes, arrival times,

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and stop locations. They then converted it into GTFS, which is the standard way for transit agen-cies to publish their scheduled data on the web.

The final step was to comb through the chaos of that data, and find out how Nairobi’s informal tran-sit system was functioning in vivo.

When they saw the findings, they were shocked.

Despite the lack of government coordination be-tween matatus, the market doesn’t yield a slap-dash tangle of contradictory bus lines.

Instead, it responds to demand with a surprisingly logical transit network.

There is a remarkable method to the madness: matatus follow 130 regular routes, congregate around the same stops, and do so at frequencies designed to maximize revenue.

The network isn’t perfect: downtown routes are of-ten jammed, and less popular areas can be under-served. But for a system without any centralized planning, Nairobi’s performs rather well.

And when the researchers printed their findings out onto a map, they looked surprisingly similar to the sort of systems we’ve mapped ourselves in Berlin, Toronto, and San Francisco!

What’s more amazing is that the matatu system has evolved to deal with congestion. An (albeit imperfect) equilibrium has been met between routes travelling down highways, arterials, and lo-cal roads. All things told, Nairobi’s informal transit system has adapted extremely well to extremely difficult circumstances.

Extremely difficult circumstances, but ones that haven’t deterred us.

Using the data collected from the Digital Matatu project, Transit App will be the first public trans-portation app to integrate Nairobi’s transit system.

Before, the lack of public transit information forced commuters to plan their day around the particular matatus they happened to be familiar with.

But now commuters in the city will have the flex-ibility to find which ride will get them to their destination at their own personal convenience. They can access a list of nearby routes — where to board, how frequently they arrive, and where they’ll stop.

And if riders need to go somewhere new? Our trip planner will tell them how to get there. This capa-bility is important: one of the discoveries of the

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Digital Matatus project was that some Nairobians don’t take the most efficient routes — simply be-cause they don’t know the options. Even Google Maps doesn’t support transit in Nairobi yet.

We’ve adjusted the app interface to match Nairo-bi’s needs, including frequency-based schedules and regional color coding. Like in other markets, schedules, stop locations, and route maps are all available offline — no 3G connection required.

And while we won’t be able to offer real-time tran-sit information (like we do in most major cities), we are figuring out a way to make it happen. In which case, Nairobians will be able to see exactly when their next matatu is arriving.

Of course, that’s not all.

After wrangling with Nairobi, we’ve gained the confidence that it’s possible to integrate any in-formal transit system. Whether it’s the peseros of

Mexico City, the jeepneys of Manila, or the dala dalas of Dar es Salaam—nothing is out of reach. We won’t be able to do it alone of course, but with the right partners, even a lack of government in-volvement won’t be able to stop us.

Even in highly decentralized transit systems, we know we can provide commuters with better ac-cess to information. Of course, it’s not as straight-forward as partnering with an established agency. But urban planners and civic entrepreneurs are resilient, and even a complete lack of outside support won’t prevent them from coming up with ways to improve urban mobility.

So what are you waiting for?

Come join us in bringing Transit App to every city in the world.

Hakuna Matatu,Transit App

12 Photo: Ben Snooks/Wikimedia

Violence andunemployment runrampant in “fragile cities”

Photo: McKay Savage/Wikimedia

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Unemployed youth. Lack of edu-cation. Social tension. Violence.

These are among the characteris-tics of “fragile cities” overrun with crime and gangs, making them difficult to govern, Robert Muggah writes in Foreign Affairs.

Muggah cites a variety of factors for the trend. “Turbo-urbanization” — meteoric population surge over a short period — is a contribu-tor. An example is Karachi, which grew from a half million people in 1947 to 21 million today. While the port city plays a key economic role for Pakistan, it’s also among the world’s most violent metropo-lises. Other fragile cities include Acapulco, Mexico; Maceió, Brazil; San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Lagos, Nigeria.

Some once-fragile cities, such as Rio de Janeiro; Ciudad Juárez, Mex-ico; Medellín, Colombia and New York, turned themselves around through new approaches to polic-ing and other strategies, the article says. “The good news is that city fragility is not immutable; it can be reversed with time and invest-ment,” Muggah writes. The author is research director at the Igarapé Institute in Brazil and director of research and policy at the SecDev Foundation in Canada.

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China is producing more energy than all U.S.nuclear plants…using wind farms!

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China’s wind farms are reported to have a total theoretical operating capacity of 115,000 mega-

watts. In comparison, America’s nuclear reactors have a total combined capacity of 98,400 mega-watts.

It is worth noting that capacity does not directly equal output. Instead, it represents the maximum amount of energy that could be produced under perfect conditions. Clearly, with a source as variable as the wind, the actual output of China’s turbines will be lower than 115,000 megawatts but the sta-tistics are still indicative of the differences in power generation between the nations.

The west has traditionally shown reluctance to turn to renewable energy generation in a big way, prefer-ring to build more coal and nuclear-powered plants. Wind turbines in the UK contribute only a minor amount of power to the National Grid, representing 10 percent of total supply in February 2015.

Although the US, UK and many other countries in Europe have several sites suitable for the con-struction of wind farms, plans are often rejected for large-scale operations due to opposition from near-by landowners and protesters who note how little energy one turbine alone produces.

With many located around designated areas of natural beauty, finding appropriate placements can be hard. It is because of this that the majority of the UK’s turbines are situated off-shore, in the sea.

China has plans to expand the wind’s role in its energy generation even further. By 2020, the rising superpower wants to be producing 200,000 mega-watts of electricity with wind farms.

China is also developing other forms of power gen-eration though. Over a third of all nuclear plants un-der construction are located in China and the contri-bution of nuclear power will also triple by 2020.

The nation is also notorious for its usage of pollut-ing aging coal-fired power stations as it endeavours to fuel its huge population. For the foreseeable fu-ture, wind power looks to remain the dominant play-er in China’s energy generation program however.

NB: Press Cutting ServiceThe Urban Gateway culls articles from daily press coverage from around the world. These

articles are posted on the Urban Gateway by way of keeping all users informed about matters of interest. The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and in no way

reflects the opinion of UN-Habitat