ABSTRACT
Under conditions of rapid urbanisation, transport needs in African cities are growing. Many cities are, therefore, looking into new technical solutions for urban transport provision. To address this demand, various international organisations are promoting bus rapid transit systems (BRTs) as a high-capacity, effective, road-based yet climate-friendly public transport solution. This chapter argues that the introduction of BRT follows universalising assumptions and procedures of classical innovation policy for the roll-out of the technical system. Through case study research in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya), this chapter analyses the introduction of BRT systems with regard to their context-sensitive implementation and shows how innovation policy indirectly demands the substitution of existing local transport systems. In both cities, local stakeholders began engaging and re-negotiating the terms of implementation during the planning and construction phases to counter the technology-centred innovation approach. The elaboration unpacks how the initial claims for exclusive service by the BRT on certain routes were challenged by local transport providers and passengers to form hybridised transport systems that interlink with local transport modes. Disrupting the inscriptions of innovation policy under which models such as the BRT are generically transferable technical systems, the chapter calls for the adoption of contextualised and widely negotiated integrated transport planning.
