Authorities in the city of Kigali have disclosed that the road from the city centre to Kigali International Airport will soon be used to pilot the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system as a way of reducing traffic congestion. The BRT is a bus-based public transport system designed to have better capacity and reliability than a conventional bus system. BRT system includes roadways that are dedicated to buses, and gives priority to buses at intersections where buses may interact with other traffic; alongside design features to reduce delays caused by passengers boarding or leaving buses, or paying fares. Due to the lack of this system in Kigali, city dwellers have been complaining about traffic congestion and long queues while waiting for buses. Mérard Mpabwanamaguru, the vice mayor in charge of urbanization and infrastructure in the City of Kigali disclosed that the city is currently working with the World Bank on a project to carry out a feasibility study to revamp public transport. The project, he said, has three components including one for Dedicated Bus Lanes. “We will build infrastructures/roadways on this road that will be dedicated to high capacity buses to transport large volumes of passengers and thus reduce traffic congestion,” he said. He said the study to make City Centre-Airport road BRT is underway and the cost is yet to be announced. The project, he noted, has also a second part that will help to revamp the Nyabugogo transit hub. “We will revamp Nyabugogo Bus Park to another level. The revamping will increase its capacity to receive many buses,” he said. Officials said that they will start by upgrading the Nyabugogo bus station in the next two year. Rwf45 billion had earlier been estimated to be spent on upgrading the bus terminal. However, the final cost will be revealed by the ongoing studies. There were 2,948 vehicles owned by licensed public bus and minibus companies and cooperatives across the country most of whom take passengers from or cross Nyabugogo Bus terminal to upcountry. There are over 500 buses operating in Kigali city alone according to the recent RURA statistics. The third part of the project, he added, will be training the workforce in the transport sector and urban dwellers so that they have skills to handle and use the set-up infrastructures in a smart way. “A way of ensuring smart public transport and smart city, high technology will be used to ensure passengers get updates of bus arrivals, time and the available spaces in them,” the official said. Cable cars project Mpabwanamaguru added that the study for cable cars is also underway. In May this year, Rwanda and Vuba Corp signed a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) for the development of Smart City Mobility solutions in the form of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)/Automated Transit Network (ATN) in Rwanda. Apart from public transport, he said that at least 215 Km of tarmacked roads have been planned to be constructed in the next four years to boost the transport sector in the capital. Pudence Rubingisa, The Mayor of Kigali city said that so far the capital has 500 km of tarmacked roads adding there is need to rehabilitate 2,400 km to make all roads tarmacked in Kigali.
