Multi-Stakeholder Governance Is the Key to Successful Urban Mobility Projects

Interview conducted by Marie Dols with Raymond Deschamps, former Director General of SYTRAL Mobilités. Now involved with CODATU, the author shares his experience in supporting Mobility Organising Authorities in Africa. He discusses the challenges of governance and multi-stakeholder coordination, which are particularly important in the context of Multimodal Transport Hubs.

Can you explain the framework within which you work with urban transport stakeholders in Africa?

Until 2020, I was Director General of SYTRAL Mobilités, the authority responsible for organising mobility in the Lyon metropolitan area and the Rhône department. As part of my responsibilities, I welcomed numerous foreign delegations. It was in this context that I became acquainted with CODATU¹.

Today, I am a volunteer member and provide support to Mobility Organising Authorities (AOM)² in sub-Saharan Africa. I have been working with AMUGA³ in Abidjan for several years. I draw on the professional experience I gained during my thirty-year career in urban mobility. I am always very careful to take into account the specific context of each country in which I work. The idea is not to transpose the Lyon model, because models cannot always be replicated. Rather, my approach is to support decision-making and help avoid mistakes that we ourselves have sometimes made.

How would you describe the current governance of urban public transport projects in major African cities?

The first thing that comes to mind is that progress is being made, even though there are a great many issues that create difficulties. My conviction is that all stakeholders concerned with mobility must be involved and that broad consultation is needed to build a shared vision and develop a mobility project that serves all residents.

I would say that this is the main challenge facing urban mobility policies in major African cities today. It seems to me that there is often a lack of coordination between stakeholders. For example, between ministries that sometimes oversee major projects involving structuring transport lines, operators running existing networks, local authorities responsible for the territories crossed, and finally informal transport operators.

The case of Abidjan is interesting. AMUGA exercises its responsibilities across Greater Abidjan⁴. This is both the appropriate scale at which to address mobility and the appropriate structure for involving all the stakeholders concerned.

What must be remembered is that a network only works if it is interconnected and integrates several modes of transport (generally three to four). A mass transit system will only function if the secondary network provides feeder services through interchange stations, and if an even more localised service provides connections to outlying neighbourhoods. It is this comprehensive, interconnected and integrated network that feeds the mass transit system; without it, the system operates without passengers.

In Abidjan, from the very beginning of the metro and BRT studies, AMUGA incorporated the issues of feeder services and connections with the existing urban transport network. This is not always the case, yet it is absolutely vital to ensuring the long-term viability of a mass transit mode.

And of course, this “intermodality”, the transition from one mode of transport to another, takes place at multimodal stations and transport hubs (PEM).

What approaches do you identify for the development of multimodal transport hubs (PEM)?

Multimodal transport hubs play a major role in network performance because they contribute significantly to promoting intermodality. They are the places where users transfer from one mode of transport to another.

For a multimodal transport hub to function optimally, it must facilitate transfers and also save users time during their journeys. To ensure the success of a hub, its operations must be optimised and its management properly organised among the various stakeholders. It must also be attractive by providing users with services and shops. To be successful, it must in a sense become a place of life, somewhere people want to go beyond simply using the transport services.

This is why, when we talk about multimodal transport hubs, we are talking about urban development and planning. The availability of land becomes an important issue. This is all the more complex because these hubs are most often already located in the heart of the city, where existing infrastructure and housing constrain their optimisation.

In the case of Abidjan, this issue has been properly addressed, as AMUGA commissioned a study in preparation for the future opening of the metro, which is currently under construction, as well as the forthcoming BRT lines.

Ideally, the location and size of multimodal transport hubs should be determined before the construction of new major transport lines.

What role should informal transport (TA) play in these discussions?

In most major African cities, informal transport provides a transport service that meets the needs of urban residents at an affordable price. Nevertheless, the main challenge is to integrate it harmoniously into the conventional transport network.

Informal transport must be part of the mobility chain and should be regarded as providing last-mile services and connections to isolated neighbourhoods.

To achieve this, Mobility Organising Authorities must recognise it as such. Governance arrangements must therefore involve informal transport stakeholders in their discussions and preliminary studies when creating new lines and restructuring existing transport networks.

Ideally, they should have a full place in the consultation processes involving all public transport stakeholders, but also in the steering bodies responsible for preparing and implementing changes to existing public transport lines or creating new ones.The informal transport sector must not be overlooked, as it plays a very important role in the successful ridership of major transport systems.

The case of Dakar is a good example, since when the BRT line entered service, it suffered considerably from competition from informal transport.

AMUGA is exemplary in this respect, as it has fully involved informal transport stakeholders in its studies on restructuring the existing transport network in anticipation of the opening of new major transport lines.

For its part, CODATU has continuously promoted informal transport as part of efforts to optimise transport networks in Africa. It advocates professionalising the sector so that drivers can benefit from formal employment status, providing them with social protection and better working conditions.

It is within this framework that CODATU is giving informal transport a specific place at the International Conference on Sustainable Mobility and Climate, which CODATU is organising in Abidjan.

Have you addressed the issue of the occupation and management of public space, which are essential to the proper functioning of multimodal transport hubs?

During the construction of BRT systems, street trading creates major problems. We often observe that the solution adopted consists of physically separating the infrastructure from its surroundings (barriers and fences around the lanes, controlled entry gates to stations).

This is effective in keeping other uses away and ensuring a good level of transport service, but it is rather negative for pedestrians and the urban quality of the neighbourhoods through which the lines pass.

Here again, it seems to me that these are complex issues that raise questions of governance. We are dealing with stakeholders within a particular territory, and local authorities seem to me to be the obvious actors to involve.

I naturally have in mind the discussions that took place in Lyon when the first tramway lines entered service in 2001 and their stations were developed.

We used the term “easy ground”, meaning spaces designed as much as possible for pedestrians, including older people and people with reduced mobility.

But the most important factor in gaining acceptance from district mayors was the principle of “façade-to-façade” urban design. This broad scope of development naturally entails significant costs, but it is the condition for acceptance by mayors, who benefit from genuinely high-quality urban improvements.

What I take away from our discussion is, as I said, the importance of broad consultation; we can even speak of multi-stakeholder governance.

This broad involvement must be established upstream, from the very beginning of projects.

Then, to manage discussions and even make decisions between competing priorities, considerable anticipation and even imagination are required.

For spaces such as multimodal transport hubs, we must imagine what future uses will look like and identify the basis on which to build dialogue with a multitude of stakeholders about a reality that does not yet exist.

Notes

¹ CODATU is an international non-governmental organisation. Its mission is to promote sustainable urban mobility in cities of the Global South.

² An AOM is a public body that manages and organises transport and mobility within a given territory.

³ Greater Abidjan Urban Mobility Authority (AMUGA).

⁴ Greater Abidjan comprises the Autonomous District of Abidjan (consisting of 13 or 14 main municipalities, depending on the administrative division) as well as several surrounding towns included in its urban master plan.

This interview has been translated from French using a.i.