Artisanal Public Transport In Niamey: A Service That Has Become Essential For The Vitality Of A City

Abstract

Sub-Saharan cities are relatively young and are undergoing rapid demographic and spatial growth, one of the consequences of which is the impact on population mobility. After independence, most of these cities had public passenger transport companies. In the 1980s, we witnessed the “gradual disappearance of large public companies following various restructuring plans or even liquidation”. This led to the proliferation of various forms of small-scale passenger transport, including motorcycle cabs in Porto-Novo in the 1980s, Woro-Woro cabs in Abidjan in 1994, and Talladjé-Talladjé in the 1970s. The aim of this article is to determine the share of home-made collective transport in the mobility of households living in the outlying districts of the city of Niamey. We opted for a cross-sectional method involving a series of observations and a household survey on the mobility conditions of the population living in Niamey's outlying districts. Data processing was carried out using SPSS and Office Suite software. At the end of this study, it emerged that the population living on the outskirts of the city of Niamey is mainly made up of civil servants and shopkeepers, and that 47.99% of these households are captive to artisanal means of transport. Cabs dominate this supply, accounting for 68.18%. The 52.01% of households equipped with a means of transport mainly use motorized two-wheelers (62.73%), followed by cars (34.55%).