An old hope for Maputo transport

Another new idea seems set to fail, but thankfully the BRT may still, finally, go ahead

Good afternoon. The Maputo Metropolitan Transport Agency is considering contracting a private operator to bring in its own buses to operate in the Maputo metropolitan area, Noticias reports today. But it is hard to imagine how any private operator could make the economics of this work, given the low fares it will be forced to charge, and the state of disrepair of Maputo’s roads which cause serious damage to buses which run on them.

The agency was created in 2017, to plan and manage an integrated transport system in the cities of Maputo and Matola and the towns of Marracuene and Boane, recognising that the transport ministry was unable to solve the problem of access to transport on its own.

The agency has implemented a series of measures that have proved ineffective. Many buses donated by China and subsequently run by transport cooperatives are now broken. A multi-million dollar project for electronic payment on buses has also failed to work, and electronic card charging booths installed along several routes are in disrepair.

Meanwhile access to transport remains a major challenge and at rush hour people are still being transported in open, flat-bed trucks, commonly known as 'My love'.

The best answer which has yet been proposed is a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system for the Maputo Metropolitan Area, and the World Bank has indicated it is ready to finance it. All that’s left is for this very long-delayed project to actually become reality.

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Agenda:

• Today: President Nyusi concludes his state visit to Finland

• Tomorrow: The National Institute of Statistics launches its annual socio-demographic survey.

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