Africa is a rapidly urbanising continent. Since 1990, the proportion of people who live in towns and cities has risen from 28% to 44%, according to the World Bank. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts the continent’s urban population will double to 1.4 billion by 2050.
In many cases, public transport has failed to keep up with this growth, with hours-long traffic jams a common feature of many metropolises. While some cities have light railways, such as Addis Ababa and Lagos, and others have public bus networks, many commuters rely on private minibus taxis.
“This has got to do largely with the colonial planning systems that have been adopted and inherited on the continent,” said Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane, a professor of development planning and urban studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “Urban areas were segregated and hence fragmented and so formal transport provision was largely intended for the formal city or … the ‘white area’.”
Poor planning since then has meant that people moving to cities have largely not been catered for, Sihlongonyane said, adding: “It’s very hard to travel around our cities in South Africa and even in Africa … the post-apartheid government, post-independence governments, have failed to develop public transport.”
Guardian correspondents in three cities – Nairobi, Johannesburg and Abidjan – spoke to residents about the challenges they face on their daily commutes.
Nairobi
It is 6am on a Wednesday in the neighbourhood of Kibera, where colourful, art-covered buses are lined up outside shops. “Hamsini hamsini Ambassadeur”, a conductor shouts, giving the price of 50 Kenyan shillings, about 30p, for the ride to a landmark hotel in the city centre. As passengers are drawn to his vehicle, he bangs its side as they enter.
These privately owned vehicles, known as matatus, are the most popular form of transport in the Kenyan capital, a city of almost 5 million people spread over 17 constituencies. More than 10,000 of these vehicles move commuters into, out of and around the city every day.
There are two main types of matatus: vans that carry 13 passengers and buses that carry more than 30. Many are brightly coloured, featuring writings, drawings and art inspired by hip-hop and other pop culture influences.
They also include faces of global stars. Among those plastered on the matatus in Kibera were of the rapper Kendrick Lamar, the footballer Cole Palmer and the reggae artist Gregory Isaacs.
Many matatus tend to be noisy, with blaring music. They are also infamous for flouting traffic rules to get to their destinations as fast as possible, including by cutting off other vehicles and even driving on pavements.
Conductors can be seen taking dangerous jumps on and off moving matatus, and swinging from their door frames.
As is the case elsewhere on the continent, Nairobi suffers from notorious rush-hour congestion that road expansions and the creation of new highways have failed to adequately address.
Given alternatives like personal vehicles, taxis, boda bodas (motorcycle taxis) and a commuter rail operating on a scant network, matatus remain the most convenient way to get around the city for most commuters.
“You have to wake up early to beat the traffic,” said Duncan Wade, a 39-year-old interior designer, whose journey to work takes him about 45 minutes if he sets off before 7am, and nearly two hours if he starts later.
Wade was about to board a matatu in Kibera for a 40 shillings ride to the central business district then another 50 for one to his workplace in Kahawa Sukari, a neighbourhood about 16 miles from Kibera. “The good thing with matatus,” he added, “is that they’re cheaper than boda bodas.”
Johannesburg
At 5.45am on a recent morning, David Lebo polished his black leather shoes as he arrived at Naledi station on the west side of Soweto, south-west of Johannesburg.
Lebo, 60, leaves home at 5.30am every morning to get a seat on the 6.15am train into the city. In total, his commute to work as a maintenance manager at a Botox clinic in the upmarket suburb of Rosebank is 2.5 hours.
By the fourth stop, passengers were standing cheek by jowl. Fifty-five minutes after the Metrorail train left Naledi, the passengers spilled out at Park station into the heart of Johannesburg’s old Central Business District (CBD). Many took private minibus taxis onwards to the plush northern suburbs, where large businesses relocated after crime rose in the CBD.
“To take the train is more convenient, is more affordable than a taxi,” Lebo said. A minibus taxi costs 27 rand (£1.17) from Naledi to Park station, compared with 12 rand on the train, while the taxi from Park station to Rosebank costs 17 rand, he said.
Johannesburg is a sprawling metropolis of almost 5 million people; 9 million including the contiguous city of Ekurhuleni. More than 30 years after apartheid ended, its racial and economic geography has barely changed. Most black workers commute long distances from the same townships their communities were exiled to by the white minority regime in the 1960s.
While wealthy people drive, the biggest portion of commuters walk to work. Of those who take public transport, about 70% use minibus taxis and 4% trains, said Hishaam Emeran, the chief executive of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), which runs the Metrorail. The remainder use city buses.
Passenger trains in South Africa effectively ground to a halt in 2020, with just four out of 40 lines operational. Mismanagement and corruption led Prasa to almost “total ruin”, according to the Zondo commission, an inquiry into “state capture” of South Africa during Jacob Zuma’s presidency between 2009 and 2017. The railway lines were stripped by thieves.
Thirty-five of the lines are now open, with a plan to get all running by 2028. Passenger numbers nearly doubled to 77 million in the year to March 2025, 53% of those in Gauteng, Johannesburg’s province. But that is still a far cry from the peak of 646 million in 2009.
The minibus taxis, mostly white 15-seater Toyota Quantum vans, are infamous for poor maintenance and dangerous driving. In the first three months of 2025, 59 people were killed in taxi violence in Gauteng, as rival companies feuded over control of lucrative routes.
The minibuses also stop Uber and other app hire drivers from picking up passengers in many parts of the townships. In August, a private hire driver was shot dead and his vehicle torched in Soweto, while another driver and a bystander were injured.
However, because trains and buses do not run to their workplace doors, minibus taxis are often the only option for most Johannesburg public transport users.
Abidjan
Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital and the second largest city in west Africa after Lagos, draws residents from around the region: about a quarter of the 6.3 million people living in its 13 communes are foreign nationals.
The city is spread across the Ébrié lagoon, with bridges and ferries linking key communes such as Cocody, Treichville and Marcory. For decades, getting around meant navigating a dense, chaotic transport network built on informal systems and ageing infrastructure.
Yellow shared taxis called woro-woro and overloaded gbaka minibuses, often sporting murals of celebrities such as the footballer Didier Drogba or the late DJ Arafat, form the backbone of the city’s informal transit network.
“Just getting from here to there is a full-time job,” said Adama Bakayoko, a 28-year-old pharmacist who goes from Koumassi to Cocody daily. “There are too many of us for these roads. Every day’s a fight just to get where you’re going.”
The city’s equivalent of London black cabs are orange taxis with catchy bumper slogans that frequently belt out tunes from zouglou, the popular Ivorian music genre, as they navigate the city.
State efforts to modernise the network include the Société des Transports Abidjanais (Sotra) bus system and the Abidjan Metro project. Sotra offers designated stops and set fares, but it struggles to meet demand. Buses are frequently overcrowded or delayed, and the network does not reach the informal settlements where much of the population lives.
Like Lagos, Abidjan is prone to traffic jams. In parts of the city, small buses known as badjan – also called “22 Places” because of their seating capacity – worsen the situation by stopping anywhere on the road to pick up passengers on their way to inland towns.
A massive infrastructure drive in the past decade, focused on building bridges, has opened up new road routes between some districts. But a long-awaited metro, designed to connect north and south Abidjan more efficiently, is years away from completion.
