The urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) includes the target to provide “access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all” by 2030. However, debate exists around the best indicator to measure this target, and few actual measurements exist. This is in part because basic transit data are missing from many of the world’s cities, including in Africa where popular or “informal” systems dominate. This paper explores how to make progress in measuring indicators for the SDG transport target using Nairobi’s minibus system, matatus, as a case study. We partially measure the SDG indicator for the city as currently defined by the UN and then compare the SDG measurement to a location-based accessibility indicator that incorporates income data, travel times, and land-use considerations for Nairobi’s highly monocentric spatial urban form. We show that although the SDG analysis suggests generally favorable transit coverage, it also points to underlying transport inequalities for low-income residents. The more fine-grained location-based accessibility analysis reveals rapidly decreasing accessibility to opportunities as distance increases from the city’s central business district. This accessibility-based analysis further highlights income-based transport inequalities, identifying opportunities for improving integrated transport for residents living on the city’s near and far peripheries. Improving non-motorized transport access for those living in low-income areas with high access potential would also be important to improve access. We recommend that cities start using open-source software and open data to measure a variety of indicators needed for data-driven policy, to meet SDG 11.2 and go further to improve access to opportunities for all residents.

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Private investments present a critical funding opportunity to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, due to the growing recognition that socially and environmentally responsible solutions can generate impacts and financial returns across the risk spectrum. Innovative new mobility solutions—especially when driven by impact-oriented investments and enabled by inclusive policies—can be part of the solution for sustainable and equitable transport. The research paper features key insights on impact-driven investments in new mobility enterprises in Kampala, Uganda, and Hyderabad, India. The paper highlights the current challenges to impact investing in mobility enterprises, including difficulties in accounting for impact, dilution of impact from other sectors, regulatory regimes and political risks that could hinder the running of mobility businesses, and entrenched stakeholders holding back investments. It concludes with opportunities to confront these challenges and pathways to safe, clean and inclusive transportation for vulnerable urban residents in the global south.

More robust measures on transport decarbonization are needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, including reducing vehicle kilometers travelled and electrifying vehicles. Sustainable modes of travel, such as public transport, can and must play a crucial role in reducing the growth of private motor vehicle use, while at the same time bus fleets must be electrified. According to our analysis, one hundred out of 142 first- and second-round Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted, as of December 2021, mention public transport, but only 26 identify targets. Stronger, more ambitious targets will be needed to address sub-national mitigation actions, as well as matched implementation through national policies.

In the past decade, bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors have been added in China at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world. As the number of BRT systems in Chinese cities continues to increase, it is critical to identify the key factors that influence the operation performance and service quality of these systems. In this paper, the design of BRT systems in China is compared with that of non-Chinese cities with a ranking system based on the set of indicators from the BRT Standard (2013 and 2014 editions), which were developed by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. The database included experts’ assessments of more than 99 BRT corridors in 59 cities and 21 countries and was available online. To identify strengths and opportunities to improve the Chinese BRT systems, the analysis of variance method was used to test whether the BRT score differences between the Chinese BRT and non-Chinese BRT systems were statistically significant. Results showed that, on average, BRT systems in Chinese cities scored significantly lower than those in other countries. This finding can be explained by the low scores of Chinese systems in design indicator categories such as integration and access, a category that evaluates the level of integration with other modes of transportation, pedestrian access and universal accessibility, and infrastructure, which measures bus station design features.