Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Transport Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo Assessing motorcycle taxi activity in Cameroon using GPS devices Armel Kemajou ⁎ , Rémi Jaligot, Martí Bosch, Jérôme Chenal Urban and Regional Planning Community, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL ENAC CEAT Bâtiment BP, Station 16, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Motorcycle taxis Mixed approach Spatial analysis GPS tracking tools Urban transportation Africa ABSTRACT The emergence of motorcycle taxis as a mode of urban transport in Africa can be seen as a bottom-up response to the larger problem of a demand that is not sufficiently met by public services. Transcending the debates re- garding the relevance of this solution, this article explores motorcycle taxis as substitute for urban transport in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The study aims to improve the understanding of how drivers run their activity and to identify its impacts on the city using a mixed-methods approach. We combined the data from a three-week GPS motorcycle taxis route survey with semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and direct observation. This ap- proach, which in itself is innovative for the study of informal transport in Africa, is an important methodological contribution. The analysis of the data collected highlights small radii of action and high inactivity rates, and helps shed light on how this mode has led to an increased demand for short trips in more diffuse urban forms. We point to the need for holistic thinking in order to better integrate motorcycle taxis into urban transportation planning policies in Yaoundé as well as other major cities in the region. 1. Introduction Urban planning requires a clear, detailed understanding of the uses of space and the practices of city dwellers (Bertoni and Leurent, 2017; Bolay et al., 2016; Bresnihan and Byrne, 2015; Challéat and Lapostolle, 2017; Chenal, 2015; Lehtovuori, 2000). Despite their methodological limitations (Nicolas et al., 2002) and technological advances allowing for greater precision (Toole et al., 2015; Wolf, 2006), travel surveys are still the most efficient tool for obtaining data to develop planning po- licies (Dumont et al., 2012). While the African urban environment also follows this logic, it nonetheless suffers from a lack of knowledge of daily mobility behaviors, due in part to the limited diversity of methods in existing work(Plat, 2003). Moreover, obtaining reliable, up-to-date urban data is extremely difficult in the African context (Cohen, 2006). In this context, the challenge is managing transportation efficiently and implementing the right tools. GPS technology provides solutions to this issue. Increasingly used in mobility studies, it allows for data to be created and, at the same time, overcome some of the limitations that traditional methods pose, with more accurate, more efficient and possibly less intrusive analyses (Chung and Shalaby, 2005; Dumont et al., 2012; Jaligot et al., 2017; Shoval et al., 2010; Zong et al., 2017). To our knowledge, the use of this method to study urban mobility in sub-Saharan Africa is not very common, but GPS tracking gradually begins to be used especially for informal transport (Evans et al., 2018; Goletz and Ehebrecht, 2018; Saddier et al., 2016). The word ‘region’ will be used hereafter to refer to this part of the continent (Cervero and Golub, 2007; Heinrichs et al., 2017). In the same way, smartphone-based methods are also facilitating data collection on urban mobility, when mixed with more qualitative methods like interviews (Zegras et al., 2018). Our study focuses on motorcycle taxis, which is an informal mode of transport but yet represents a large percentage of the offer in major regional cities in this region. It is based on data collected using GPS devices on a sample of motorcycle. The sample was comprised of dri- vers operating from two stations, Nkozoa and Simbock in Yaoundé, Cameroon. These two stations were representative in terms of size and location in the urban fabric, as we will explain further on. This study aims to assess motorcycle taxis activities to improve planning and regulating of the activity by the public authorities, and identify the socio-spatial issues it raises within the urban space. This should start with a thorough assessment of how this means of transport works, based on reliable data. The specific objectives of the study are: 1) to characterize the urban transport offer provided by the subsystem of motorcycle taxis, by assessing its operational framework, and 2) to suggest recommendations for balancing socio-economic performance and negative externalities. The first section of the article provides an overview of the role and operation of motorcycle taxi transportation in African cities. This is followed by a description of the study area and the methodology. The results are then presented and discussed in the light of the study's https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2019.102472 Received 21 December 2018; Received in revised form 7 June 2019; Accepted 2 July 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: armel.kemajou@epfl.ch (A. Kemajou), remi.jaligot@epfl.ch (R. Jaligot), marti.bosch@epfl.ch (M. Bosch), jerome.chenal@epfl.ch (J. Chenal). Journal of Transport Geography 79 (2019) 102472 0966-6923/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T