Infrastructure

Mombasa Issues BRT Tender to Tackle Traffic Congestion

The closing date for the international tender is 21 July 2023.

Updated on

June 16, 2023

Mombasa traffic jam — Mombasa is struggling with perennial traffic jams. PHOTO | FILE

Mombasa has floated an international tender for the implementation of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system aimed at tackling traffic congestion in the city.

In a public notice on Monday, the county said it had set July 21, 2023, as the closing date for the tender, which is specifically reserved for international bidders.

“Bidders are advised to regularly visit the Mombasa County government website for any additional information/additions to the tender,” the notice stated.

The county has kept the tender value undisclosed, although the previous county régime had indicated that Sh1.1 billion was required to implement the project.

In September 2018, then Mombasa Transport Executive Tawfiq Balala said the county was preparing to hire a consultant to plan and design the BRT system.

“We are doing in-house plans before we engage a permanent consultant. We have had meetings with some of them to see how best the system can work and help decongest the city,” he said.

A BRT system is a bus-based public transport system that uses dedicated lanes to offer faster transportation relative to a conventional bus system.

According to Mr. Balala, it had been proposed that the main road from Buxton to the city centre should be a dedicated lane for buses that will carry about 100 passengers in one go.

He said that under the bus rapid transit system Mombasa traffic jams would be a thing of the past, and it would take just seven minutes for buses to navigate the city centre instead of 30 minutes under the current system.

“This will work better than having a train system. We have seen the BRT has worked very well in countries such as Brazil and Columbia, where it was first introduced,” he added.

Mombasa later hired the consultants who carried out the rapid transit system study for the Dar es Salaam BRT system a few years earlier.

This signalled that the county was considering drawing inspiration from the Tanzanian BRT system, which is the first bus rapid transit in East Africa.

Interestingly Nairobi, which is also planning its bus rapid transit system, had in the same year dropped the Dar es Salaam BRT model after it found it wanting.

The Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Namata) said in March 2018 that Dar es Salaam BRT had several flaws, such as delays in bus arrivals and departures as well as a poor link between roads and commuter rail stations.

Namata said it was working with the Bogota model which is more advanced and better timed than Dar es Salaam’s system.

Dubbed TransMilenio, the Bogota BRT, which opened in December 2000, is the largest bus rapid transit system in the world.

It is in essence a bus system masquerading as a subway.

The Bogota TransMilenio bus transit system. PHOTO | FILE

TransMilenio, however, has a downside. The system has recently become a victim of its success – with an 86% disapproval rating from users.

Allegations of poor service quality have often led to user strikes, with commuters blocking the dedicated bus lane, at times, causing a complete system jam.