A Comparative Study of Institutional Responses to Sustainable Mobility for Public Transport in cities in Ghana and Tanzania

Abstract

Cities play an important role in exploring and developing solutions to address the current sustainability challenges mainly instigated by environmental transformations. This places cities at the forefront of sustainable development and sustainable mobility due to the rising negative impacts of transportation to the environment. Actors and key stakeholders for sustainable mobility in cities in Sub-Sahara Africa however seem not ready for the associated challenges towards the attainment of sustainable mobility for public transport. It is against this background that this study comparatively investigates the institutional responses to sustainable mobility for public transport in Accra city-region (Ghana) and Dar es Salaam city (Tanzania) in the light of existing capacity of the institutions, coordination and communication mechanisms. This study adopts the qualitative research design and methodological choices that are in conformity with the ideologies of this design in Social Science Research. The philosophical basis of this research is Social Constructivism framework stance on ontological beliefs, epistemological beliefs, axiological beliefs, and methodological beliefs. To this end, qualitative expert interviews with institutions in the two collective case study cities conducted remotely, in tandem with collection of documents during interviews and observations of the existing public transport provide the basis for further analysis to address the research question. Findings from the study reveal that both cities perceive sustainable public transport as use of higher occupancy vehicles, clearly defined local goals on sustainable public transport and holistic regulation regime. The comparative overview analysis of the two cities in line with the key issue of governance indicates that in the case of Accra city region, the absence of a city council with a respective city head or champion as in the case of Dar es Salaam city is a major limiting factor retarding development programmes, plans, and projects. Inadequate coordination among institutions, on the other hand, results in duplication of efforts and dispersal of scarce resources in the case of Dar es Salaam despite the presence of a city council. The implementation of pilot bus rapid transit systems as a means of addressing the myriad of public transport challenges has been a consequence of the dominance of road-based public transport in both cities. This however has had several limitations with institutional bottlenecks as clearly indicated by the absence of a Public Transport Authority among others. Consequently, short term policies, medium term policies, and long-term policies are proposed for development interventions in Accra city-region and Dar es Salaam city. The study contributes on the one hand to knowledge on institutions, institutional capacity, coordination and communication mechanisms of these institutions. On the other hand, it contributes to the ontology and epistemology of the theory of social constructivism regarding institutional capacity.