Skip to main content

Motorcycles on the Rise in Africa

Cheap motorised two-wheelers have long been ubiquitous in various Asian countries. Now their numbers are surging in Africa too.

Taiwan was apparently the pioneer of mass motor scooter ownership and use in the 1970s.

Scooters lined every footway in 1996 when I visited Taipei.

Today Vietnam's cities are the undisputed motorcycle capitals of the world. The volume of motorcycle traffic in Vietnamese cities is astounding!

Ho Chi Minh City = Motorcycle City

Motorcycles are also significant in (among others) Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, parts of China, and increasingly India.

We have seen in Asia that motorcycles can be both highly problematic and a boon for people who sorely need better mobility. The dilemmas often create ambivalence, which is reflected in the diverse policies seen in Asian cities.

Some welcome and accommodate motorcycles (as in Malaysia) while some seek to limit or even ban them (as in some Chinese cities). Vietnam's large cities have recently been trying to limit new registrations of motorcycles, apparently without much effect.

Rise of Asia-made motorcycles in Africa
Until recently, motorcycles were not a major feature of African cities. Except that is for a few places. These include Africa's motorcycle capitals, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali, where more than 50% of motorised transport is on motorcycles. For more on this, see this pdf of a World Bank presentation on urban transport in Africa.

However, an item last week from Kenya's Business Daily (Kenya: Bikes Rev to Beat Rising Fuel Costs And Traffic Jam) highlights the increasing role of motorcycles in eastern Africa, both as taxis and for personal transport.

The boda-boda of Uganda (both on bicycles and on motorcycles) are well known. Now it seems the boda boda business has also been growing in Kenya, especially since a recent crackdown on unroadworthy vehicles created a vacuum in transport supply. Motorcycle ownership by individual households seems also to be rising rapidly.

The article also highlights a growing role for motorcycles in rural areas, citing a recent study led by Paul Starkey (see here for a powerpoint summary: slide 10 focuses on motorcycles). Despite the obvious and serious safety issues, the report is positive about the contribution of motorcycles to African rural transport. (By the way, it also laments the policy neglect and hostility to bicycles, which are also increasing in importance)

The transport policy 'industry' doesn't seem to have any clear answers on what, if anything, to do about motorised two-wheelers. We are far from any consensus on what policies would be useful. Should we welcome motorcycles? And if so, what policies could maximise the benefits while reducing the harm?

I don't know but I wish I did.

[POSTSCRIPT: via the Urban Transport News site I see that the "Life of Guangzhou" reports that Africa is the top market of Guangzhou-made motorbikes (6 March 2008) .
The Urban Transport News comment/summary on this item reads:
Motorcycles have been completely banned in Guangzhou, and are in the process of being banned in all other leading Guangdong and Pearl River Delta cities including Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai. Yet at the same time, Guangdong is the largest motorcycle-producing province in China, overtaking Chongqing in 2006. Many other big Chinese cities have plans to phase out motorcycles and have stopped accepting new registrations. So where are the motorcycles being exported? 760,000 motorcycles were exported from Guangzhou in January 2008, a 16.6% increase on a year earlier - when the motorcycle ban first came into effect. 70% of the exports were destined for Africa. The 530,000 motorcycles exported to Africa is a 48% increase from January 2007.]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Save Manila's (mostly informal) public transport!

Metro Manila depends on informal, lightly-regulated public transport which now faces a catastrophe as a result of this pandemic. The Mobility Coalition, an alliance of eight Metro Manila transport advocacy groups, has ideas on what to do. I spoke with Robie Siy who is active in the Mobility Coalition and who writes the weekly Mobility Matters column for the Manila Times.   [Scroll to the end for more details on Robie, Mobility Matters and the Mobility Alliance.] Scroll down for highlights of our conversation or listen with the player below. Click here to learn how to subscribe to this podcast.

Singapore Urban Transport: The Warts-and-All Story

Singapore's National Day is this week (9 August). So I decided to share Singapore's urban transport story - or my slightly  unusual take on it .  It is   a unique city in various ways but its urban transport policies are well worth your attention even if you don't live in Singapore. This is a warts-and-all version of the story, and it is my own view, not any kind of official one. It's also a little wonkish in parts. [Hi all you policy wonks!] But I hope to keep your interest with some surprising twists, such as: Why was the bus-only public transport system in an awful state by the early 1970s? If the buses were awful in early 1974, how was Singapore able to impose drastic increases to the cost of motoring in 1975? You will have guessed that the buses must have been drastically improved in 1974/75. But how was that achieved? Singapore urban transport enjoyed success through the 1980s and 1990s but its core social bargain (cars for the rich; decent but bas

Shaping public transport

If you care about promoting public transport, you need to understand the key choices about organising and regulating it. These choices shape the industry and they really matter. This is NOT just about privatisation versus government operation. It is more interesting than that. This edition of Reinventing Transport shares the key alternatives and gives a sense of what's at stake. The focus is buses but most of the ideas also apply more widely. Click here to learn how to subscribe to the podcast. You can either read the article below or listen to the podcast episode  (use a podcast app or the player at the beginning of this article or click HERE ) . This is just the basics, not a deep dive. If you want more gory details, then follow the links right at the end of the article. It may seem dull but bus regulation is important! [1:29] The regulatory framework sets how decisions get made and who makes those choices. It makes a huge difference for things you care about