This document summarizes research on the impact of mobile phone usage on transport and mobility patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. Key findings include: 1) The proliferation of mobile phones across Africa has enabled new ways for people to manage distance and coordinate travel due to limited landlines and transport infrastructure. 2) Case studies in Tanzania and among youth in Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa found that mobile phones are often used to arrange transportation, reducing the need for travel. However, occasional in-person contact remains important. 3) While virtual contact via mobile phones can substitute for some physical travel, co-presence is still significant for maintaining trust and social relationships in many African contexts.

1. Making new connections: transport,
mobilities and mobile phones in subSaharan Africa
Gina Porter
RGS/IBG annual conference, London, August 2013

2. Transport, daily mobility and mobile
phone usage in Africa
• Mobile phones, mobility and everyday lives – research in Western
contexts
• Making new connections: the mobile phone revolution and distance
management in sub-Saharan Africa
– Mobile phone uptake
– Current transport constraints
• Mobile phones and everyday mobility patterns and practices
– Older people in rural Tanzania
– Child/youth mobility in Ghana, Malawi, South Africa
• Virtual mobility as a substitute for corporeal mobility: how important
is co-presence in African contexts?

3. Mobile phones and everyday mobile
lives in the West
• Growing interest in impact of ICTs including mobile
phones on mobility in Western contexts
• Impact on activity patterns [e.g. Line et al. 2011]:
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Augmenting [rather than replacing] face-to-face
More multi-tasking
Rescheduling at base and on the move
‘Lubricates’ but no decline in travel
Use as a safety device [women, when walking, driving]
No impact on modal choice?
No fundamental change in travel behaviour
• Need for some co-presence remains [Urry 2004, 2012]

4. Expansion of mobile phone usage
across Africa: a different context
• Few landlines; remarkable expansion of mobile phones
[on a scale commercial operators never envisaged] Now
smart phones too:
If you have a phone it is nothing. In the olden days it meant
you were the richest man in the meeting [school boy
16y, Ghana, owns smart phone]
• User challenges e.g. patchy network availability - often
mostly a home-based device; charging constraints [home
electricity rare]
•
Airtime costs lead to adapted [low-cost ] modes of use
–’buzzing’, SMS, money transfers etc.
• Substantial transport constraints/costs + widespread
poverty

5. Everyday life on the road: a multiplicity of
travel constraints and hazards
• Poor roads
• [un]availability, [un]reliability, [high] cost of
transport services
• Traffic accidents [exacerbated by poor
roads, vehicle condition ]
• Petty extortion by police, etc.
• Robbery [and violence]► the need to escort
goods; dangers of carrying cash
• Poverty, gender-, age-related travel constraints
[economics, culture, infirmity etc.]
• All potent factors when contemplating the
potential for [phone] substitution

6. Case study: Travel, transport and mobile phone
use among older people in rural Tanzania
• Older people: rarely-researched group in transport studies
despite common mobility-related social exclusion [poverty+
infirmity]
• Poverty widespread among older people in rural Tanzania: many
looking after grandchildren
• Study of older people’s access to health services and livelihoods
in collaboration with HelpAge International Tanzania [AFCAP
funded]
• Mobile phone use – a significant new factor in the transport and
mobility equation - particular links to motor-cycle taxi expansion

7. Participatory research with older people
in Kibaha district, Tanzania
• Focus on older people’s transport and mobility
• 10 settlements [1 on paved road, 9 off paved road]
3 research strands:
1. Participatory Peer Research by 12 Older People [8
men, 4 women, aged 60-70y] trained as community
co-investigators
- helped shape design of conventional checklist
interviews and survey questionnaire + conducted
own interviews [N=74]
2. Qualitative in-depth check-list interviews with older
people, key informants, boda-boda drivers [N=194]
3. Survey research: questionnaires to older people
[N=339]

9. Roads and transport in Kibaha district
• Many roads barely passable after heavy
rains. Roads traversing black cotton soils
particularly intractable
• Motorcycle taxis [boda-boda ] now the main
transport mode, except along the paved road
– Rapid spread to all study settlements in
last 2-3 years
– Uptake facilitated by availability of cheap
imported Chinese motorcycles

10. The ongoing transport and communications
revolution in Kibaha district: 1. Boda-boda
• Boda-boda [motor-cycle taxi] has transformed rural lives, even for
OP
– OP would prefer other motorised transport [bus, minibus] BUT
the only real alternative is usually walking
– Especially important in emergencies
– Motorbike taxis: 18% older women, 31% older men used in the
week before the survey [N=339] – now ubiquitous
Boda-boda has improved my life … now it is simple to travel to Mlandizi
and even to transport the farm produce to town. Not only that, many
goods are now available at our village …so we do not need to travel
to Mlandizi frequently for shopping.
[Man 73y, Kitomondo]

13. 2. Mobile phones: a complementary
new rural connector
• Mobile phones OWNED by 41% older men, 15% older women BUT
widely available through relatives and friends
• Boda-boda services especially efficient when ordered by
mobile phone:
I have a phone and in my phone contact I have one number of
a boda-boda operator who I usually call. [Widow 67y, Ngeta]
• Phones now widely used to organise boda-boda transport
both in emergencies and the everyday - impacts on modal
choice

14. Many reports of OP’s phone-related
reductions in travel
I don’t have to travel so much nowadays - maybe when
there is a funeral or a crucial thing for me to
travel, but for minor things I use my brother’s
phone and we talk
[Woman 66y, Soga]
Nowadays I don’t travel much to go to my children in
town, instead we talk [on the phone] and solve our
problems where possible
[Woman 78y, Mwanabwito].

15. Mobile money transfers for
remittances of growing significance
• Children now send money from town instead of
bringing it to the village
[reduced time/cost/travel accident + theft danger]
I use M-PESA; my children usually send money
through my chip (Vodacom-number), then they call
my friend through his phone telling how much they
have sent through my Vodacom-line, so I just go with
my chip to the Vodacom shop to take money [Man
66y]

16. Conclusions from Older People study
• Substantial access improvement in remote
areas, even for OP, especially emergency health
travel due to boda-boda + phones
• Mobile phone supports stretched households [where
children are in town and grandchildren left with
grandparents] – social + remittances
• Reported reduced travel overall due to increasing use
of phones - especially benefits remote populations +
infirm
BUT….

17. Also possible negative elements of
reduced face-to-face
Most older people have phones now. They call their
children who are far away. If you don’t remind the
children they forget you and your needs.
[Man 71y caring for 5 young orphaned grandchildren]
Phone has changed travel patterns- in the past my
children and other relatives used to come to greet me
but now they just call.
[Widow, 80y, living with children+ grandsons

18. Case study: Mobile phones and youth
(Ghana, Malawi, South Africa)
• Study of young people’s [9-25y] phone usage/impacts,
including impact on mobilities/travel [ESRC/DFID
funded]
• Builds on earlier 24-site child mobility research with
preliminary phones study/mobility observations
J. of Information Technology for Development (2012)
• Mixed methods:
– Thematic story-based interviews
– Call register interviews developing story component
– Questionnaire survey [N= 4,500]
• Collaborators: Universities of Durham, Cape Coast,
Malawi, Cape Town [and former child peer researchers]

19. Organising transport by phone
increasingly widespread, all regions
• Making transport arrangements by phone now widespread
wherever network access allows
Yesterday I called a KIA truck driver in the evening… to arrange for
him to cart my bags of maize .. But it rained heavily yesterday and I
realised that the river... may overflow its banks so I called the driver
[today] to inform him [and] postpone the whole programme. [male
farmer 25y, Ghana rural]
• Many young men work in transport sector – increasingly see
mobile phone as key to successful transport business
– incoming calls from clients at home/taxi rank/ en route where network
allows [includes bicycle taxis, Malawi]
– for collaboration with other drivers [re police, congestion, clients]
‘If the phone is not with you it is difficult… it’s mostly older drivers who
don’t have phones.’ [taxi driver 22y, urban Ghana]

20. Evidence of phone impact on travel
among youth
Work in progress but ….
• Often reduced travel of young people – linked to travel cost +
time+ dangers:
I often use [sister’s mobile] to communicate with my mother. It saves
me from travelling ….. I am able to make all requests through her on the
phone. It saves money, time and risks of accidents.
[schoolboy 15y, living with grandmother, rural Ghana]
… anytime I want to travel I call before[hand], so if permission is not
given, I reserve my transportation. Also any message can be done with
the phone unlike former times when you had to travel and at times to
meet the absence of your host at destination
[girl 17y, petty trader, coastal Ghana]
• Some increased travel [long distance] but notably for parents
[funerals etc.]

21. Occasional face-to-face contact still
essential for youth
If I’m upset I call because I can’t necessarily get to [see]
them. But you need face-to-face if it’s serious. …
[16y schoolboy boarder, Ghana forest zone]
Face –to-face interactions have reduced.. Formerly my
uncles would have to … visit regularly …now they only
meet when the issue is very critical ….. however, regular
interactions have increased, because you need very little
money and time to know how a relative is doing…
[19y schoolboy, Ghana forest zone]
[Less face-to-face, but] I need to see my clients before we
conduct business… if you just transact business on
phone, you may be deceived by fraudsters
[Vodafone salesman 19y, Ghana coastal zone]

22. How far can virtual mobility substitute for corporeal
mobility in African contexts?
• Urry 2012: co-presence important for long-term maintenance to
support trust and tacit knowledge – issue of disembodied socialities
• Face-to-face interaction often of great significance in SSA
– Personalised relationships commonly crucial in business
– Reduced face-to-face may be regretted [OP in Tanzania study]
BUT
• Need to balance value attached to personalized relationships against
factors of widespread poverty and irregular, sometimes very
dangerous transport – encourages greater substitution of virtual for
physical mobility

23. Conclusion: rapidly changing travel- and
phone-scapes across Africa
• Potential of phone substitution for travel appears far greater than in
Western contexts – but occasional co-presence still important
• Mobile phone crucial to better distance management given few
landlines + widespread poverty:
– Reduces travel costs – vital factor where low disposable incomes
– Reduces time in wasted travel: more efficient travel
– Helps accommodate travel and other uncertainties
– Reduces travel dangers [accidents, harrassment, robbery etc.]
– Particular benefits for those with mobility constraints
[disabled, infirm, women, very old]
– Environmental benefits of reduced travel
• Mobile phone already some impact on modal choice
• Much potential for developing more efficient transport systems
through integration of transport with mobile phone communication

24. Everything is possible when we
connect?