Transit-oriented development and spatial data infrastructure in African cities

Abstract

Infrastructural deficiency remains a major challenge for Africa in achieving its full potential. As one of the global hubs growing at unprecedented rate into economic centres, attending to the demand for key infrastructure has become an exigency based on the fact that inadequate transport infrastructure can add up to 40% to the costs of goods traded among African countries (Export- Import Bank of India, 2018). In an increasingly urbanised, technology-driven and overstretched world with its attendant challenges, the need to attain prosperity, frantically combat environmental degradation due to transportation and ensure sustainable growth contends with digitisation, which is driving new patterns of transport for goods, services and people (Smith et al., 2017). As transport needs and challenges are increasing world over, the unavailability of a data infrastructure framework needed to make optimal use of different data sets has further made prevailing challenges more overwhelming for major stakeholders in the transportation sector such as the urban/transport planners, investors, policy makers and commuters.