These white communal minibuses with their blue lines have become a fixture of the Dakar landscape – gradually replacing the fleet of battered blue and yellow “fast buses” that have been a familiar sight on the city’s roads for 40 years.

According to a recent study by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, the Tata minibuses of the AFTU network (Financing Association for Urban Transport Professionals) are responsible for 35% of journeys in the Senegalese capital, ahead of express coaches (20%), unregistered taxis (12%) and the public transport operator Dakar Dem Dikk (6%).

Mamour Fall, the founder of accounting firm Garecgo, which has been responsible for the management of this network since 2004, estimates that Tatas account for 50% of transport in Dakar. Unlike fast buses or unofficial taxis, they offer journeys from point A to point B at fixed prices, ranging from CFA150 to CFA650 ($1.08) depending on the distance covered, he explains.

The AFTU network currently comprises 2,300 minibuses carrying more than a million passengers a day on 72 routes in Dakar. Fourteen economic interest groupings (EIGs) are responsible for the network, working closely with the Ministries of Transport and Finance and with the Dakar Urban Transport Authority (CETUD). Dakar’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) scheme – whose inauguration, scheduled for the end of the year, could be postponed once again – will have a capacity of 300,000 people a day.

Owner-operators

Most of the city’s traffic links the suburbs of Dakar to the city centre, and for the past 10 years, AFTU has also been running 450 buses in the country’s regional capitals, including Saint-Louis, Thiès, Ziguinchor and Kaolack.

“AFTU is the result of a programme launched in the early 2000s by the Senegalese government, with the support of the World Bank, to modernise the capital’s transport sector,” explains Fall. The organisation owes its nickname of “Tata” to its inaugural order of 505 buses from the Indian manufacturer of the same name.

Since its creation, it has enabled more than 2,000 transport operators to become owners of one of the network’s buses. “We offer them a five-year leasing contract to buy a new bus, for which they pay a deposit,” explains Fall.

Scrappage scheme

“The state also pays drivers who join the network a scrappage premium of between CFA1m and CFA2.5m ($4,157) in exchange for their old vehicles, which are often polluting and substandard, such as the fast buses or the Ndiaga Ndiaye [other small public buses], which are then scrapped by merchants with whom the state has signed contracts,” continues the accountancy manager, who would like to have a fleet of more than 3,000 buses, which he believes would cover the needs of the area.

For Abhishek Singh, managing director of Tata Motors Senegal, which provides after-sales service for the 1,500 or so buses ordered by AFTU since 2004, the organisation is “an example in the sub-region”. In particular, he praises the “good governance” of the transport association, which has just placed an order for 400 new buses – for CFA24.5m ($40,739) per vehicle – to rejuvenate its fleet.

“I don’t know many transport operators who can produce balance sheets for their last three years of operation,” he says, before emphasising the network’s collaboration with the government, “particularly on ticket prices”.

Formalisation of the sector

The Indian giant, which is now well established in Senegal, with a large workshop in Pikine, is no longer AFTU’s only supplier. The organisation recently raised CFA25bn ($41.5m) from three banks, allowing it to order 500 more buses from rival companies – possibly Ashok Leyland or King Land, with whom it has done business in the past. All vehicles are purchased in kit form and then assembled in Thiès, in an assembly plant owned by Senbus.

But over the next few years, AFTU will have another major task ahead of it: to encourage the formalisation of midsize enterprises (MSEs) in the transport sector, which is still largely informal. “We are working with CETUD to ensure MSEs are genuine employers in good standing, and with social security,” says Fall. While they do have valid driving licences, only 5% of AFTU members are fully regulated professionals.

Fall is also hoping for better regulation by the authorities and criticises the fact that the streets of the Senegalese capital are still largely used by vehicles such as express coaches, some of which are not registered in Dakar and therefore shouldn’t be operating in the city.