CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the Study

Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typically managed on a schedule, operated on established routes, and that charge a posted fee for each trip. There is no rigid definition, the Encyclopedia Britannica specifies that public transportation is within urban areas, and air travel is often not thought of when discussing public transport dictionaries use wording like “taxis, trains, etc.”, and UK government COVID-19 guidance lists operators with no mention of air travel.

Examples of public transport include city buses, taxis, trolley buses (or light rail) and passenger trains, rapid transit (metro/subway/underground, etc.) and ferries. Public transport between cities is dominated by airlines, coaches, and intercity rail. High-speed rail networks are being developed in many parts of the world.

Most public transport systems run along fixed routes with set embarkation/disembarkation points to a prearranged timetable, with the most frequent services running to a headway (e.g.: “every 15 minutes” as opposed to being scheduled for any specific time of the day). However, most public transport trips include other modes of travel, such as passengers walking or catching bus services to access train stations. Share taxis offer on-demand services in many parts of the world, which may compete with fixed public transport lines, or complement them, by bringing passengers to interchanges. Para-transit is sometimes used in areas of low demand and for people who need a door-to-door service.

Urban public transit differs distinctly among Asia, North America, and Europe. In Asia, profit-driven, privately owned and publicly traded mass transit and real estate conglomerates predominantly operate public transit systems. In North America, municipal transit authorities most commonly run mass transit operations. In Europe, both state-owned and private companies predominantly operate mass transit systems. Public transport services can be profit-driven by use of pay-by-the-distance fares or funded by government subsidies in which flat rate fares are charged to each passenger. Services can be fully profitable through high usership numbers and high farebox recovery ratios, or can be regulated and possibly subsidised from local or national tax revenue. Fully subsidised, free of charge services operate in some towns and cities.

Today’s challenges of fossil fuel dependency, global warming, poverty and social exclusion are highly relevant for the transportation sector (Cervero 2013 Browne, D, & Ryan L. (2011). According to Banister 2008, Banister, D., & Hickman R (2006) Public transport is a very much debated area of interest and as such has attracted a great deal of attention from various academic disciplines. In terms of transport policy combined with car restricting measures, it is often highlighted as a means of sustainable modal shift.

Global evaluation of public transport system is very much essential to understand the effectiveness of the plans in vogue as well as to devise the plans for it’s improvement (Rahul Raoniar, Mohan Rao and Velmurugan Senathipathi 2015). Most of the major metropolitan cities in the world are witnessing rapid growth rate in industry, infrastructure, population, economic activities over the past few decades causing people to increase personalized of transportation. And as such, the cities are subjected to traffic congestion, huge delays and environmental pollution. Personal transportation in different parts of the world is characterized by different technologies with varying properties regarding usability infrastructural requirements and environmental impacts. The different means of transportation which are common in the world are in particular walking, bicycling, buses, motorbikes, tricycles, trucks, cars and other public system. In China for example, the buses are mostly used to transport people from one area to another so as to reduce the level of traffic congestion. In general, countries like Hong Kong, Germany, Paris, New York have a good transportation in the world.

In this, a greater need for strategic planning has been identified. In Sweden for instance, new legislation was enacted in 2012 partly changing the task of the regional public transport authority (Prop. 2009/10:200). The Law places emphasis on the strategic level as the regional public transport authority has to produce a regular regional transport plan (Rye and Wretstrand, 2014).

In Cameroon, taxis are the most common form of transportation found in Yaoundé. However, there are also a prime example of unsafe driving, causing a number of minor accidents that often go unreported or uncorrected. Nevertheless, driving is a social responsibility and smaller accidents have their own set of repercussions. In Yaoundé, the most prevalent types of vehicles is the taxis. Taxi drivers are arguably among the most negligent of drivers, taking risks often result in accident. By definition an accident is “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally”. However they are varying degrees of motor vehicle accidents, those which can be classified as major, resulting in injuries or death and those which can be classified as minor accidents have cause, which is most frequently attributed to some form of unsafe driving.

In Bamenda, which is the capital city of North-West Region, transport service is being delivered to the public through taxis and different privately owned vehicles, such as small buses, bus services. As a private enterprise, they have their own contribution to address the transport demands of the people (customers), particularly the poor, who cannot afford other alternative modes of transportation. The demand for transport service, however, has been increasing from time to time.

Demand and supply of transport services could not be reconciled. This can be evident from long que  of people along the roadsides and overloading of people in taxis in the Bamenda City soliciting such services to work, school.