The Dakar Bus Renewal Scheme : Before and After

The population of Senegal is about 12
million. Over 3 million people live in the Dakar
metropolitan region, which is growing at twice the pace of
the country as a whole (the population growth rate of Dakar
is about 3.6 percent per year compared with the national
rate of 2.2 percent per year). As in most cities in
developing countries, authorities have found it difficult to
meet the service demands of the growing population,
particularly those of the poor, who are the most dependent
on the public provision of water, electricity, transport,
and other services. The objective of this study is to (1)
establish how effective the finance scheme has been in
improving the quality of urban transport services in Dakar
since its implementation in 2005; (2) examine whether the
approach is proving to be financially self-sustaining and
what effect the introduction of new vehicles is having on
other service providers; and (3) determine whether, on the
basis of the available evidence, the scheme offers a
sustainable approach (both operationally and financially) to
improving transport service provision in other Sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA) cities. The program is not designed to increase
public transport capacity, and thus the impact on other
transport operators has been minimal. Service quality has
improved to the satisfaction of the general public.