Informal is Global

Benjamin de la Peña for Agile City Partners | June 25, 2021

Paratransit?Informal Transportation?

Intermediate Public Transportation?Indigenous Transportation?Artisanal Transportation?Popular Transportation?

Pop-Transport?

“The first step to inclusion is to be counted.”

-Shack/Slum Dwellers International

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BENJIE’s slide

Informal transportation comes by many names: matatus, trotros, camionetas, colectivos, jeepneys, auto rickshaws, trisikads, minibuses, mega taxis, boda bodas, tuk tuks, okadas, ojeks, —two wheels, three wheels, or four; human powered or engine powered—informal transportation very likely moves and employs more people than all the city trains, buses, and taxis around the world. They dominate the cities of the Global South. They provide affordable mobility for the poor and middle-class and livelihoods for mostly low-income households.

BENJIE’s slide

“...formal mass transit routes (red) only cover a relatively limited urban area, whereas informal routes (blue) reach far more people and are often the only access to motorised transport for low-income urban dwellers. Small, privately operated minibuses are one of the most important informal modes: In Nairobi, 70% of commuters rely on privately run ‘matatus’ to get to work, while 74% of all public transport trips in Mexico City are completed on ‘colectivos.’ In addition to the vital role these services play in getting people to work, informal transit is itself an important employer. In Kenya, the informal transport sector and associated services are estimated to employ nearly half a million people.”

from Mobility for the Masses: The essential role of informal transport in the COVID-19 recovery

by Talia Calnek-Sugin and Catarina HeecktLondon School of Economics

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INGENUITY + ARTISTRY

HISTORY AND SOCIETY● History, racism, colonial experience, exclusion

ECONOMIC POLICY ● Market primacy, investment in cities, investment in transportation

INFRASTRUCTURE ● Automobile-centric infrastructure, primacy of roads

URBAN POLICY AND FORM● Density and sprawl of residential areas,

distance from work and commerce + urban growth

VEHICLES

● Availability of and affordability of adaptable vehicles

BUSINESS MODEL

● Transportation as micro-enterprises, hypercompetitionMOBILITY POLICIES AND REGS

● Primacy of traffic management over commuter needs LOCAL CULTURE

● Celebration of “make do” ingenuity, music, songs, art, self-expression

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

● Ride hail and payment apps, digital mapping, and journey planning apps

HISTORY AND SOCIETY

ECONOMIC POLICY

INFRASTRUCTURE

URBAN POLICY AND FORM

VEHICLES

BUSINESS MODEL

MOBILITY POLICIES AND REGS

LOCAL CULTURE

● Incentivizing self-assembled “kit of parts” approaches to vehicles

● Paying for transit through specific taxes or levies

● Service contracting, fleet management services

● Prioritizing people movement

● Local arts and design awardsINFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

● Cashless Fare Collection, VLS, Digital Real Time Route Permits

Informal transportation is a truly global phenomena and yet, it always seems to be treated as a local problem.

Emphasis on “problem” rather than asset.

BENJIEs slide

1. is innovative and resilient;2. is ubiquitous in the global south; 3. is ignored in policy and investments; 4. is despised in planning; and, 5. represents a powerful lever to decarbonizing the

transportation sector through a Just Transition.

Informal transportation: BENJIE’s slide

ANDREA’s slide

Our Mission

Work hand-in-hand with informal urban transportation systems of the Global South to advance innovation, improve services, and change business models. By leveraging new technology and innovative policies, we believe these informal networks can confront climate change and make our cities work for everyone.

ANDREA’s slide

Our Partners

Our Board of Advisors

Our projects

gpitransportation.substack.com

The Global Encyclopedia ofInformal Transportation Vehicles

A project of the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation

“The aspiration to such uniformity and order alerts us to the fact that modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in its imperial rhetoric, as a 'civilizing mission'.”

― from Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott

Electric Jeepney (eJeepney) plying on the streets of metro ManilaVice President Binay used this green electronic jeepney (e-Jeepney) that was labeled "B-Jeep" during the inaugural rites on June 30, 2011. Carmela Lapeña

The e-jeepney project from ICSC.NGO

Karnataka’s e-Bhoomi

A cautionary tale

What did digitalization do?

KEY FINDING #4

“Subsidizes big business especially large real estate developers and IT firms. The Bhoomi program is facilitating very large land developers catering to a global IT Market. Earlier, these firms would have to compete with smaller land developers who often would provide a better price to land owners. Also, the public land acquisition process uses eminent domain via the Industrial acts (KIADB) to notify large consolidated land parcels in favor of big business that in effect disadvantages smaller firms with less capital and far less lobbying powers. Thus, what would have been illegal in previous times was from 1998 onwards, facilitated legally!“

Bhoomi: ‘E-Governance’, or an Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore? ( January 2006)Dr. Solomon Benjamin, R Bhuvaneswari, P. Rajan, Manjunatha

https://casumm.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/bhoomi-e-governance.pdf

Informal Transportation

“Problems”

“To be solved”

“To be controlled”

“Disorganized”

“Old and decrepit”

Technology

“Solutions”

“To be deployed”

“To be adapted”

“Optimization”

“Innovative and new”

vs

Aggregating information also aggregates power.

What are the existing power relationships? How will they shift?When we make a system legible,

who gets better vision?

Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images AsiaPac/Getty Images

“We believe informal urban transportation systems can be powerful engines for economic mobility

and for creating more sustainable and inclusive cities.”

BENJIE’s slide

www.gpitransportation.orggpitransportation.substack.com

@GlobalInformalmakeshiftmobility.substack.com

agilecity.co