Mapping Unequal Accessibility to Socioeconomic and Cultural Opportunities in Informal Urban Settlements Across two Sub-Sahara African Cities

Abstract

Access to socioeconomic and cultural opportunities in Sub-Sahara African (SSA) cities is often achieved through shared mobility, usually in the form of paratransit, powered two-wheelers, and motorized tricycle. While accessibility is a widespread challenge in SSA cities, the problem is more heightened in Informal Urban Settlements (IUS) and for socially differentiated groups such as care-givers, women, children, people with disabilities, and unemployed. IUS constitute a significant portion of most SSA cities, where they are often associated with lower-quality housing, low income populations, low car ownership, and poor mobility infrastructure.

For 2 equitable and targeted intervention, it is critical to interrogate the perception of how residents in IUS undertake and experience mobility when accessing socioeconomic and cultural opportuni-ties. Accordingly, this proposal seeks to take advantage of accessibility in its perceived and objective forms to develop a composite accessibility measure for IUS in two SSA cities: Kumasi in Ghana, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The perceived accessibility will be estimated by using the Perceived Accessibility Scale through a comprehensive qualitative survey including questionnaire, stakeholder consultation, and focus group in-terviews. The objective accessibility will capture travel distances and times, service frequency, and the phy-sical characteristics of the urban environment and existing transport modes through the Spatial Network Analysis for Multimodal Urban Transport Systems. Further, the accessibility estimation will seek to account for population demand, pedestrian response to congestion, and contextual determinants such as culture, user preferences and individuals’ awareness of service options.

The population demand, capacity of mobili-ty service, geographic separation between demand and service locations, and congestion at service loca-tions will be evaluated through the Three-Step Floating Catchment and the Rational Agent Access Model. The developed composite accessibility will greatly facilitate equitable and targeted intervention towards improving access to socioeconomic and cultural opportunities for all persons in IUS in SSA cities.

Program

Project number

EP-2021-MAC-03
Project leader
Gift Dumedah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Kumasi, Ghana

Affiliation

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Kumasi, Ghana

Contact

Project Period
2021

Status

  • Completed

Partners

Project Team – Ghana:

Charles Adams – Dept of Civil Engineering, Regional Transport Research and Education Centre Kumasi (TRECK), KNUST, Ghana
Esmeranda Manful – Dept of Sociology and Social Work, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana
Samuel Ato Andam-Akorful, Dept of Geomatic Engineering, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana
Mr Kwame Kwakwa Osei, – Dept of Civil Engineering, Regional Transport Research and Education Centre Kumasi (TRECK), KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana

Project Team – Tanzania

Hanibal Bwire – Dept. of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering (TGE), College of Engineering and Technology (CoET), University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Joyce Nyoni – Rector, Institute of Social Work, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Zahor Khalifa Zahor – The University of Dar es salaam, Tanzania
Alex Lubida – Dept. of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering, College of Engineering and Technology, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Ndyetabura Yahaya Hamisi – College of Information and Communication Technologies, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Project Team – USA

Steven Jones – Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek/University of Alabama, – Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Emmanuel Adanu – Alabama Transportation Institute/University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA
Innocent Ndibatya, – Alabama Transportation Institute/University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

Project Outcomes & Results

Final reports

Policy briefs & Briefing Notes

Media & Presentations

  1. Gift Dumedah, Hannibal Bwire, Charles Anum Adams, Steven Jones, Esmeranda Manful, Alex Lubida, Samuel Ato Andam-Akorful, Zahor Khalifa Zahor, Albert Mwauzi, Joyce Nyoni, Innocent Ndibatya. 2022. Do stakeholder perspectives on transport accessibility in informal urban communities differ in sub-Saharan African Cities? Paper presented at the 8th African Engineering Week, and 6th Africa Engineering Conference, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 7 – 11 November 2022.