Transport Services Resilience in the Global South in the Era of COVID-19: Lessons from Nigeria, Bangladesh and Uganda

The impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the transport sector and the corresponding mitigation policies have been widely investigated across the world. There were uncertainties regarding the virus and its role in the context of transport. This paper examined the resilience of transport services in three cities of the Global South during the pandemic while focusing on three main areas: (1) the impacts of COVID-19 on transport services; (2) COVID-19 related challenges of the transport services; and (3) the necessary corrective actions undertaken by transport services to manage the spread of COVID-19 and future pandemics in cities. A series of expert stakeholder workshops were conducted in the cities of Owerri (Nigeria), Kampala (Uganda) and Dhaka (Bangladesh) between December 2020 and January 2021. The aim was to seek input from city planning officials, transport policy experts, transport operator associations, civil society and the academia, among others on how the pandemic affected mobility in these cities and to identify the areas of consensus and conflict. The findings revealed that captive users, who relied heavily on these transport services were disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 mitigation measures, consequently resorting to alternative modes of mobility including walking. When the lockdown measures were gradually eased, the pandemic exposed the severe inadequacies in the operation of transport services, particularly related to adherence to health and safety guidelines, carrying capacity, fare structure and organizational/administrative limitations. The need to ensure that transport systems are prepared for future pandemics is urgent, but also is the management of transport systems in cities of the developing world.