Beyond Mapping: Sustainable and Inclusive Transport for Africa (July 2021, Virtual Event)
Funded by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and led by WRI, is now scaling up efforts in data collection, mapping, analysis and capacity building with the aim of reaching 10-15 additional cities across Africa. The platform is also moving beyond mapping just data on public transport in cities, but seeks to inform planning, creation of tools, and meaningful research on actions to improve sustainable mobility. The COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened the need for resilient mobility systems that meet the needs of the underserved and vulnerable. The partnerships possible by leveraging open data can create a regional movement for better transportation across Africa.
We aim to strengthen local data ecosystems and city capacities to utilize standardized data for improved planning and implementation of sustainable, accessible mobility – particularly among informal and paratransit systems. We also aim to help cities and countries measure progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, as SDG 11.2 calls for “safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all” and parallels other global targets to reduce air pollution and decarbonize the transport sector.
DAY 1 | July 01, 2021 | 9:00 AM – 10:45 AM ET / 4:00 PM – 5:45 PM EAT
- 09:00 – 09:20 AM ET | Opening Remarks: DigitalTransport4Africa Introduction And Announcement
Aklilu Fikresilassie, Director, Thriving Resilient Cities, WRI Africa | Antoine Chevre, Project Manager, AFD | Iman Abubaker, Urban Mobility Project Manager, WRI Africa
- 09:20 – 09:30 AM ET | Speaker 1: Overview of Public Transport in Africa
Fátima Arroyo, Senior Urban Transport Specialist, The World Bank
- 09:30 – 09:40 AM ET | Speaker 2: Impact of COVID-19 on Public Transport in African Cities
Fredric Tesfaye, Project Manager, TUMI
- 09:40 – 09:50 AM ET | Speaker 3: If information is infrastructure , Where’s the Plan?
Benjamin de la Peña, CEO, Shared-Use Mobility Center; Chair, Global Partnership for Informal Transportation
- 09:50 – 10:00 AM ET | Speaker 4: Case Study: Freetown Transit Mapping, Sierra Leone
Hindolo Shiaka, Director, Ministry of Transport and Aviation, Sierra Leone
- 10:00 – 10:30 AM ET | Audience Q&A
Moderated by: Jacqueline Klopp, Research Scholar & Co-Director, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Climate School, Columbia University
- 10:30 – 10:45 AM ET | Concluding remarks
Antoine Chevre, Project Manager, AFD | Benjamin Welle, Acting Director, Urban Mobility, and Director, Integrated Transport & Innovation, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
DAY 2 | July 02, 2021 | 9:00 AM – 10:45 AM ET / 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM EAT
- 09:00 – 09:05 AM ET | Reception / Welcome / Recap
Iman Abubaker, Urban Mobility Project Manager, WRI Africa
- 09:05 – 09:25 AM ET | SESSION 1: Mapping your city: the right tools for the job & What’s new? – Pecha Kucha
Speaker 1: Empowering Cities Through People, Skills And Technology – Abdelrahman Melegy, GIS Project Manager, Transport for Cairo
Speaker 2: OpenStreetMap: What . Why . How – Enock Seth Nyamador, OSM Contributor, OpenStreetMap Ghana
Speaker 3: Mapping your city: the right tools for the job & What’s new? – Rafael H. M. Pereira, Researcher, IPEA Brazil
- 09:25 – 09:35 AM ET | Session 1 Q&A – Moderated by Agraw Ali, GIS Research Analyst, WRI Africa
- 09:35 – 09:55 AM ET | SESSION 2: There’s an App For That! – Pecha Kucha
Speaker 1: Navita Mobility Lab: Creating Value Leveraging Mobility Open Data With Open Transport Toolbox – Bertrand Biloud, VP communication, Kisio Digital
Speaker 2: Go Beyond Mapping With Trufi: There’s an App For That! – Christoph Hanser, President, Trufi Association
Speaker 3: There’s (More Than) an App For That – Ahmed Elleithy, VP Strategy, Planning, & Commercial, Mwasalat Misir
- 09:55 – 10:05 AM ET | SESSION 2 Q&A – Moderated by Anna Oursler, Urban Mobility Coordinator, Consultant, WRI Africa
- 10:05 – 10:15 AM ET | BREAK
- 10:15 – 10:35 AM ET | SESSION 3: Big Data Incoming – Pecha Kucha
Speaker 1: HVT Africa Urban Mobility Observatory – Philip Krause, Project Lead, GoAscendal
Speaker 2: Solving Energy And Mobility First In Africa – Steven Jeremy Ntambi, n-SiNGo
Speaker 3: Emerging Insights on Mobile Big Data for Transport Planning and Enabling Factors of Mobile Big Data Partnerships – George Kibala Bauer, Senior Insights and Advocacy Manager, Digital Utilities, GSMA
- 10:35 – 10:45 AM ET | SESSION 3 Q&A – Moderated by Sarah Williams, Director Civic Data Design Lab, MIT
- 10:45 – 11:05 AM ET | SESSION 4: Unlocking the Power of Transit Data for Sustainable and Inclusive Mobility Systems in Africa – Pecha Kucha
Speaker 1: Unlocking the Power of Transit Data for Sustainable and Inclusive Mobility Systems in Africa – Carly Koinange, Team Leader – Active Mobility, Digitalisation and Mode Integration, UNEP
Speaker 2: Data Collection and Transport Projects: A Few Lessons From A Qualitative Researcher’s Perspective – Fatoumata Diallo, Doctoral researcher, SciencesPo Paris
Speaker 3: Beyond Mapping: Towards A Human Centered Approach – Charlene Kouassi, Director, African Mobilities Observatory
- 11:05 – 11:15 AM ET | SESSION 4 Q&A – moderated by Gashaw Aberra, Country Manager, Ethiopia, ITDP Africa
- 11:15 – 11:30 AM ET | CLOSING REMARKS
Antoine Chevre, Project Manager, AFD | Benjamin Welle, Acting Director, Urban Mobility, and Director, Integrated Transport & Innovation, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Impact of COVID-19 on Public Transport in African Cities
Speaker: Fredric Tesfaye, Project Manager, TUMI
If information is infrastructure, Where’s the Plan?
Speaker: Benjamin de la Peña, CEO, Shared-Use Mobility Center; Chair, Global Partnership for Informal Transportation
Case Study: Freetown Transit Mapping, Sierra Leone
Speaker: Hindolo Shiaka, Director, Ministry of Transport and Aviation, Sierra Leone
OpenStreetMap: What . Why . How
Speaker: Enock Seth Nyamador, OSM Contributor, OpenStreetMap Ghana
Mapping your city: the right tools for the job & What’s new?
Speaker: Rafael H. M. Pereira, Researcher, IPEA Brazil
Go Beyond Mapping With Trufi: There’s an App For That!
Speaker: Christoph Hanser, President, Trufi Association
There’s (More Than) an App For That
Speaker: Ahmed Elleithy, VP Strategy, Planning, & Commercial, Mwasalat Misir
Solving Energy And Mobility First In Africa
Speaker: Steven Jeremy Ntambi, n-SiNGo
Emerging Insights on Mobile Big Data for Transport Planning and Enabling Factors of Mobile Big Data Partnerships
Speaker: George Kibala Bauer, Senior Insights and Advocacy Manager, Digital Utilities, GSMA
Data Collection and Transport Projects: A Few Lessons From A Qualitative Researcher’s Perspective
Speaker: Fatoumata Diallo, Doctoral researcher, SciencesPo Paris
Beyond Mapping: Towards A Human Centered Approach
Speaker: Charlene Kouassi, Director, African Mobilities Observatory
Speaker Biography (Click here)
Digital Transport 4 Africa – Partners and Friends Meeting, Jan 2020, Washington, D.C.
Hosted by WRI at their D.C. office, DT4A’s annual meeting recapped mapping work in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Santiago de los Cabelleros, Dominican Republic. Speakers incude Iman Abubaker (WRI Africa) and Sarah Williams (MIT).
Digital Transport 4 Africa – An Open Resource Center for Improved Urban Mobility Workshop – Nov 2018 Paris
Building on the conversations from last year’s workshop in Paris,
Speakers: Jacqueline Klopp (Associate Research Scholar – Columbia University, NYC)
Speakers: Felix Delattre (OneOffTech)
Speaker: Iman Abubaker (Health & Road Safety Coordinator – WRI Africa)
Speakers: Randy Wilson (Head, Department of Transportation – Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly)
SSATP Annual Meeting - June 2018, Abuja
The second SSATP Annual Meeting under the Third Development Plan (DP3) will take place in Abuja, Nigeria, during the week of July 2-6, 2018. The mission of SSATP is to facilitate policy development and related capacity-building in the transport sector of Africa. Sound policies lead to safe, reliable, and cost-effective transport, freeing people to lift themselves out of poverty, and helping countries to compete internationally.
During 2018 annual meeting, SSTAP agenda includes a workshop session on “Digital Transport for Africa: Towards an Open & Collaborative Digital Platform to Improve African Urban Public Transport”. This workshop will be the opportunity to launch officially the resource center and present different pilote experiences.
Speaker : Antoine CHEVRE & Lise BREUIL (AFD)
Speaker : Jacqueline M. Klopp (Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Earth Institute, Columbia University)
Speaker : Digital Matatus Team
Speaker : Enock Seth Nyamador & Alex Johnson (Department of transport – Municipality of Accra)
Speaker : Mohamed Momtaz Hegazy (geograph and computer)
Speaker : Khadim CISSÉ, strategy and Studies director, CETUD
Towards an Open & Collaborative Digital Platform to Improve African Urban Public Transport – Nov 2017 Paris
Given expected urban growth in Africa, the development of sustainable urban mobility policies is crucial to ensure efficient and “livable” cities. In most African cities, urban transport services are dominated by fragmented private operators, that provide a dynamic service for all, at no cost for the municipality, but with negative side impacts on congestion, pollution and road safety. We think that the challenge is not fight against paratransit operators but rather ensure transition of this sector toward optimized and inclusive mobility system. Digital technologies are a tremendous opportunity to deal with these multitude of operators and develop win-win scheme. Workshop held in Paris objective was to mobilize stakeholders (public authorities, start-ups, academics, etc.) around an open and collaborative toolbox using digital as leverage to enhance the overall transport network.
Based on shared lesson with recent experiences and workshop enable to brainstorm on next steps for a digital approach enhancing paratransit mobility services.
Authorithies point of view
Operators point of view
Passengers point of view
Tech point of view
From the workshop held on the 10th of November 2017 with restricted community, we defined next steps.
# What is the road map?
The road map proposed by the community is as follow:
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Milestones : community agenda should stick to:
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Slot in Transforming transportation in Washington in january 2018
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Slot in SSATP annual forum to be held in Nigeria ou Cote d’Ivoire spring 2018
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Convince “Story telling”: This will come with explanation of long and mid term objective to convince that digital data collection and common standards for data are crucial. This come with:
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Preparing a paper on existing experience Digital Matatus, Accra Mobility and Transport for Cairo and prospective lead by Jackie Klopp under Columbia University and financed by AFD.
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Comparative analysis on technical approach: GTFS First -> OSM vs OSM First -> GTFS by Felix Delattre and Florian Lainez
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Additional data analysis and development on Accra Mobility with automatic dashboard by AFD and Transitec
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The objective is to present outputs of the workshop on transforming transportation in Washington in January 2018.
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Resource center (see below): In parallel implement an online resource center with at least:
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All tools, materials and lessons learned already developed
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Data management and guidelines
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Network and “champions” identification
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Preparing support for next experience
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Budget guidelines
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The objective is to have minimal resource center ready for SSATP annual forum spring 2018 to be ready when decision maker or other express their willingness to develop similar experience in their country.
# What is the center of resource?
Morning – Overview of challenges and lessons learned of pilotes project of paratransit mapping in African Cities
- 09h00 – Coffee
- 09h15 – Welcome Speech – Jérôme Gruber (Chief Digital Officer) et Reda Souirgi (Deputy Transport Division)
- 09h30 – Parantransit issues overview – Reda Souirgi (AFD)
- 10h00 – Digital Commons and open source software approach – Stéphane Schultz Fabrique des Mobilités/ADEME
- Break
- 10h40 – First step, how to map public transport in Africa? Lessons learned on recent pilotes project:
- Kenya Nairobi: DigitalMatatus (40 min) with Jackie Klopp (Columbia university), Sarah Williams (MIT), Dr Peter Waiganjo and Dr Daniel Orwa Ochieng (University of Nairobi)
- Egypt Cairo: TransportforCairo (40 min) Abdelrahman Melegy et Mohamed Hegazy
- Ghana Accra : Accra Mobililty (30 min) with Alex Johnson (Municipality Accra), Simon Saddier (Transitec) and Jungle Bus (20 min) with Florian Lainez and Enock Seth Nyamador (OpenStreetCommunity Ghana)
- 12h40 – Lunch break with buffet
Afternoon – Workshops – How to build and improve mobility services?
- 14h00 Inspiring pitches: start up / companies / projects: Whereismytransport? and Gometro from South Africa, Amarante/Iticket from Dakar, Flux Vision Orange Business, Navitia Kisio Digital Paris, Digital Africa Challenge by AFd and BPI / Animation: Stéphane Schultz / Antoine Chèvre
- 15h00 Workshop 1: What benefits and potentiel improvements for different stakeholders?
- 16h00 Workshop 2: What are next steps for digital and paratranist in african cities?
- Wrap Up – 17h00
Stéphane Schultz (Consultant Innovation / Numérique – fondateur 15 marches)
Speakers: Jacqueline Klopp (Associate Research Scholar Columbia University NYC), Sarah Williams (assistant Professor & Director Civic Lab MIT Civic Data Design Project at MIT), Dr Peter Waiganjo (Computer Science – University of Nairobi), Dr Daniel Orwa Ochien (Computer Science – University of Nairobi)
Speakers: Mohamed Momtaz Hegazy (geograph and computer), Abdelrahman Melegy (GIS / Coder / co funder), Islam Gaber (GIS / Coder / co funder)
Speaker: Alex Johnson (Department of transport – Municipality of Accra)
Speaker: Simon Saddier (Expert Transport – Transitec)
Speaker: Florian Lainez (Fondateur Jungle Bus – Vice Président OpenStreetMap France)
Speaker : Yahya Elmir
Next event
The second SSATP Annual Meeting under the Third Development Plan (DP3) will take place in Abuja, Nigeria, during the week of July 2-6, 2018.