When buses, matatus and boda bodas became our public transport system

This piece started life as a self-congratulatory tweet by the @UgandaUPF (Uganda Police) #fikasalama team on Iganga Road. They had arrested a lorry carrying natives either on their way to the market, a wedding or burial (the things we natives usually go to in groups). The photo in the tweet showed the passengers squatting in the back (flat bed) of the lorry to evade surveillance or for safety. I have been in the back of a lorry several times, so I suppose it was a bit of both.

My response was to congratulate the police for ‘arresting’ the natives. They seemed not to appreciate the fact that their lives were in danger. Indeed operation Fika Salaama (arrive safely) has done a lot to save us from the horrors we were witnessing, especially on “Massacre” road. But, being my true self, I just couldn’t let it go, because the irony of the bigger picture. Arresting natives without formally providing an alternative means of conveyance was in my opinion rather blasé. “What happened to Uganda Transport Company?” I tweeted.
This particular tweet elicited quite a number of responses from friends and we soon got into an argument about whether we had a transport system or not. One of the learned ones insisted that we had a public transport system and this consisted of all the private operators who were licensed by government to provide public transport. I argued that those were business people taking advantage of the situation and did not constitute what in transport economics is referred to as a functioning public transport system. If it were not primarily profitable, they wouldn’t be out there providing that service.
Many tweets later, I promised the enthusiastic defender of the ‘transport system’ I would get to explaining the attributes of a public transport system. First a public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, or mass transit) is a shared passenger-transport service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, carpooling, or hired buses, which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement. That is the easy part, which can be accessed by a few clicks.
But a transport system has certain characteristics that make it worth being called a public transport system. Four of the most critical are as follows. First, a public transport system has a seamless infrastructure design with connections between different modes of transport like road, rail and ferry. Thus if one landed at Entebbe, and hopped on to a public transport system, he/she should be able to travel with one ticket from Entebbe to Kampala, hop onto the train and travel to Jinja, and then hop onto a ferry at Masese and travel to Migingo with the same ticket! That is referred to as an automatic fare collection system (AFCS).
Second, a public transport system has recognised and approved schedules or timetables. A public transport system is organised in such a way as to recognise peak and off peak times. At peak times, additional vehicles are laid on and people are transited as fast as possible to get to work and the like. I am not aware of a matatu timetable as the matatu brother Joachim uses drives away the moment it is full. Third, the transit vehicles must be uniform and standardised for recognition by commuters, based on the routes they ply.
Lastly, and more important (which was the reason I was tweeting about UTC), fares on a public transport system must be means tested. In lay language that the fares must be arrived at based on a basket of goods consumed by ordinary people. The general public should generally be able to afford those fares, for purposes of commuting to work and for social issues. But the natives would never know these things, would they?
Samuel Sejjaaka is the country team leader at Abacus Business School.