Dar es Salaam BRT

The much-anticipated Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit system, or DART, is vying with the Rea Vaya system of Johannesburg, South Africa to be the first BRT system implemented in Africa. Dar es Salaam city leaders and the city council’s Project Management Unit have shown unwavering support for planning a high quality mass transit system and related improvements to public space.

Rendering: DART BibiTiti aerial rendering (Source: Luc Nadal, ITDP)

ITDP, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (US AID) and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Environment Facility (UNEP GEF), is assisting with the institutional and regulatory frame-work, as well as downtown traffic and non-motorized transport planning.

Key features of the system include the following:

• A 21-kilometer ‘closed’ BRT system, with dedicated 18-meter articulated buses, passing lanes at stations, median-aligned stations, and likely peak passenger demand on Morogoro Road of around 13,000 passengers per hour in one direction.
• UA daily passenger ridership of around 200,000 passengers in the system, representing 20% of daily bus trips taken in the city.
• A ‘transit mall’ exclusively for pedestrian, bicycle and BRT traffic that will extend through the Central Business District (CBD) and along the waterline to the ferry terminal.
• Express services that reduce travel times and improve operating efficiency.
• Enclosed stations, pre-board fare collection and level boarding and alighting.
• BRT access to the CBD, the Ubungo market area and intercity bus terminal, the main artery of the City (Morogoro Road), the intense Kariakoo market area, wealthy areas to the north of Kawawa Road, and high density housing and mixed development along Kawawa Road.
• High quality pedestrian and bicycle facilities along the BRT corridors, including regular at-grade pedestrian crossings and a segregated bicycle lane on both sides of the corridor.

Institutionally, TANROADS is in charge of the construction of the system, while an executive agency will be set up to manage and control the system. The existing Daladala bus operators, in a consolidated and professionalized form, will play an important role as operators in the new system.

Based on a competitive bid, ITDP contracted Deloitte & Touche, a management consulting firm, to work on details of the fare collection and the business plan for the system. Training is ongoing, with local trainees, the PMU, and consultants benefiting from the experience of being directly involved with project planning.

With assistance from ITDP sub-con-tractor Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, non-motorized transport planning is focusing on the CBD area, where the road network is being recon-figured and roads have been classified into four categories: BRT corridors, ‘green’ roads for cyclists and pedestrians; shared roads, and through-roads.

In addition, a parking study is being carried out together with the bicycle and pedestrian planning to ensure CBD businesses are not adversely affected. The World Bank is one potential source of funding and is already working on providing loans to fund DART’s implementation under a Transport Support Program.

For more information about this project, contact:

Aimée Gauthier