IMPROVING SUSTAINABLE RURAL TRANSPORT SERVICES: CONSTRAINTS, OPPORTUNITIES AND RESEARCH NEEDS

Roads are not enough. People need rural transport services to access services and livelihoods. Governments are not adequately stimulating passenger and freight service development in rural areas. Services include buses, minibuses, trucks, pickups and intermediate means of transport (bicycles, motorcycles, three wheelers and animal power). Communities need safe, reliable, predictable and affordable transport services. Transport appraisal studies highlighted problems of low fleet investment, unreliable services and poor governance, with clear gender implications. Intermediate means of transport are increasingly important with new roles for motorcycles and three wheelers but challenging times for animal power. Climate change will affect services. New indicators are needed to measure the impact of road improvement and recommended initiatives on rural transport services. Rural transport services use motorised vehicles and non-motorised means of transport to carry passengers and/or goods for the benefit of people in rural areas. Sustainable rural transport services are crucial to social and economic development. Investment in better roads and infrastructure will be wasted unless there are also improvements in the transport services that operate along them. The economic justification of road improvements is often based on reducing transport operating costs, thereby increasing the affordability of rural passenger and freight services. However, to date insufficient attention has been given to describing and measuring the actual improvements in rural transport services. For the overall benefits of improved rural transport infrastructure to be realised there is need to encourage the development of a range of complementary and competing transport services, small and large, short-distance and long distance, passengers and freight as appropriate for different rural contexts. There must also be agreed means to verify the improvements in rural transport systems. This paper will introduce current thinking on rural travel and transport systems, and discuss the different types of rural transport service. Some key knowledge gaps will be identified and discussed and conclusions drawn. This paper, which focuses on African contexts, is intended to stimulate ideas on the issues that need to be addressed in order to improve rural transport services. It is hoped that some readers will be able to share ideas and start relevant initiatives that will lead to increased understanding among transport planners. The aim will be to have better, safer and more affordable transport services as well as appropriate indicators that can be used to demonstrate the benefits to all types of people of improved transport services, regulation and infrastructure.