Evolution of bus rapid transit concepts in Sub-Saharan Africa: towards lighter design and incremental deployment

Alison Chetty and Christoffel Venter

Research in Transportation Economics, 2025, vol. 112, issue C

Abstract: While Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has matured into a standardised set of technologies worldwide, its slow adoption in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities has raised questions about its suitability in some contexts. A number of key factors affect BRT adoption in SSA, including poorly developed road networks, constrained demand and affordability limits, and the strength and importance of the legacy informal public transport (PT) ecosystem. In response, some cities have increasingly departed from the conventional infrastructure-heavy BRT design approach towards lighter, more incremental deployment concepts, in an effort to better match local realities and constraints. This paper aims to describe this shift and put it into the context of a continuum of BRT deployment approaches. A literature review presents clarifying terminology and an overview of recent BRT system design in SSA cities. We then describe a phased implementation approach evolving in South African cities that focus on improving existing services gradually towards the final BRT design. Two examples of BRT evolution in large (City of Tshwane) and medium-sized (Rustenburg) cities are described in more detail. The potential implications of design standards are explored and provide insight for cities in developing countries seeking designs best-suited to enhance PT services with limited funding.

Keywords: Incremental BRT; Sub-Saharan Africa; BRT deployment; Development pathways; Design standards; Full BRT; BRT lite; Flexible design approach; Paratransit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H54 R40 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885925000873
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:retrec:v:112:y:2025:i:c:s0739885925000873

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_2&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2025.101604

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Transportation Economics is currently edited by M. Dresner

More articles in Research in Transportation Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().