The Contrasts Between Kampala’s Bodaboda and Nairobi’s Roadway Pioneers
East Africa’s boda cities, Kampala and Nairobi, have a lot in common as well as disparities in the transportation sector. The busy streets in both cities boast of multitudes of pedestrians who are sure to take a boda whenever they wish. While other means of transport require the passenger to walk some distance to the usually specified terminals, bodas are normally revolving around to ensure easy access. Standing wherever you are, a mere hand signal may attract the attention of boda operators from all directions, all eager to offer the service and willing to pick you from right where you are, and to drop you to your exact final destination either within the city or further outside the city. They breathe convenience.
Visiting Nairobi during the Africa Climate Week, I took time to meet and talk with boda operators and also did roadside observations in a way similar to what we usually do with my colleagues in the Quarterly Boda Surveys in Kampala. Let’s explore the results:
1. Accessibility
I spent some time observing boda operations at four boda stages within the CBD. One remarkable thing these stages have in common compared to Kampala and elsewhere is that they operate in a way that I call First Come First Take — or as others would say, a queue. Here is how it works: When passengers approach the stage, the boda riders at the stage know who amongst themselves is next in line to take a passenger. So, any rider that the passenger talks to is sure to tell the passenger to go with the rider next in line. When all have taken, the cycle continues since whoever takes a passenger comes back to the stage, helping to balance opportunities for business among boda riders at the stage.
“Most of the stages in the CBD operate in a similar way but there are still many where the boda riders work anyhow,” said Gerald, a member of the stage on Biashara street where the First Come First Take arrangement is followed. Going by Gerald’s words, the mode of operation of the boda riders in Kampala should be termed as “anyhow” since they work in an arrangement where the one who is actively looking for passengers has got higher chances of seeing and picking the passengers and can make rounds of trips while the rest of the colleagues have none. A rider might only pass on a passenger if the passenger is offering too little, or going somewhere they don’t want to go — especially if there is a police crackdown in that area. In that way, Kampala stages are every rider for himself.
According to Ismael Abdallah, Secretary of KIBRA Boda SACCO, all parts of Nairobi are saturated with bodas. This means anyone can have access to a boda whenever and wherever they want. Much as this is true, I find that boda saturation is more prominent in Kampala than in Nairobi.
2. Regulation and Safety
Licensing
“As long as you have a license and insurance, you can work in the CBD,” said Edgar Obuoti, a boda rider on Biashara Street, “but generally, the government doesn’t want us here.” Driving license and Third-Party insurance are similarly enforced in Kampala and it is a common cause for the crackdowns.
It should be noted that many of the boda riders in both Nairobi and Kampala do not have driving licenses and insurance, and often ride against traffic rules, causing frequent road crashes. These are some of the grounds on which both cities proposed evacuation of bodas from the Central Business Districts. However, despite the long-standing attempts to remove bodas from the Kampala CBD, the number of boda riders seem to increase unceasingly. For Nairobi, the fewer bodas in the CBD compared to the outskirts might be an indicator that Nairobi is gradually achieving the evacuation of bodas from the Central Business District.
Helmets
From the roadside observations on Moi Avenue in the Nairobi-CBD and on Lusaka Road, a few kilometers away from the CBD, using an arrangement similar to that used in the quarterly boda observations in Kampala, I marked passing motorcycles for 10 minutes each direction for both roads, looking at Helmet possession, usage and Helmet types.
Findings:
In Kampala, most helmets are half-face helmets, and come in a variety of colors. In Nairobi, however, I found nearly all helmets used by boda riders are full-face and yellow. In Kampala, only around 15% of riders are wearing full-face helmets, compared to 53% of riders in Nairobi. Non-usage of helmets was very similar — 22% in Kampala, and 25% in Nairobi.
“Whoever buys a new motorcycle gets two yellow helmets together with the motorcycle regardless of which company they buy from,” said Jose, a boda rider at Moi Avenue. This, in some way, relates to, “When you buy your own helmet from the shop, you can get any type and any color of your choice. But if you buy a motorcycle, you get two poor quality yellow helmets,” said Benison, a boda rider on Ojijo Road, Nairobi. While the second helmet is supposed to be for the passenger, the situation remains essentially the same as Kampala — extremely few boda riders carry additional helmets for passengers. Instead, the second helmet is usually sold.
While this raises questions around accessibility to helmets, it’s important to examine the quality as well.
In Kampala, you buy one motorcycle and get one helmet. In terms of quality, boda riders trust helmets provided by motorcycle companies, and when they go to the shops, they find all types of helmets with various qualities, sizes and colors. And normally, the cheaper the helmet, the poorer the quality.
In the survey I did in Nairobi, I saw helmet usage is higher in the outskirts than in the CBD. Compared with Kampala, the reverse is true. For Kampala, enforcement on helmet use among the bodaboda operators is intensified and consistent in the CBD and almost non-existent in the outskirts. Whether Nairobi CBD cares about helmet use calls for further examination.
For the boda passengers, in both cities, helmet use is still far too low. For example, data from the Lubyanza Quarterly Survey indicates that only around 1% of the passengers in Kampala use helmets. From the observations on Moi Avenue and Lusaka Road, boda passengers in Nairobi don’t seem any better.
Reflective gear
A requirement in both Kampala and Nairobi, and from my time on the roads it is obvious that the majority of boda riders in both cities comply with the requirement to wear a reflective jacket. However, for Nairobi, boda riders have been complying with the use of reflective jackets for a much longer time, according to riders I spoke with.
Loading restrictions
Boda riders are licensed to carry only one passenger, but they also carry multiple passengers quite often and sometimes carry terribly wide loads that would suitably be carried by small trucks. This is true for Kampala. For a week I spent in Nairobi, I didn’t see such overloading.
3. Pricing and Fare Structure
Distance and time of the day matters a lot in determining the fares, both in Kampala and Nairobi. But in Kampala, they go further to also consider the passenger’s baggage size, road conditions, fuel prices, and they are more open to haggling than in Nairobi. For example, the few times I used a boda in Nairobi, the boda riders could ask for an amount and insist on that, so I couldn’t help but pay (though my lack of Swahili didn’t help). In Kampala, on the other hand, the passengers seem to have higher bargaining power because they often decide how much they want to spend on a trip and, since the boda riders in Kampala swarm towards a passenger, this passenger chooses to go with the boda rider who accepts the smallest amount.
For the boda riders who use ride hailing apps, the situation is quite different. There is no need for haggling as the fares are determined digitally. However, the boda riders in both cities complain about the low fares, and the commission to the ride hailing companies such as SafeBoda, Faras, UberBoda, Bolt, etc, all of which have been operating in both cities for a couple of years (though SafeBoda left Nairobi in 2020).
The interesting part is that digital payment is very common among boda riders in Nairobi whether the boda rider is working online or offline. They are much more open to mobile money payments compared to their Kampala counterparts who often struggle with change when the passenger gives them a big note. It seems we all avoid change in one way or another.
As bodas continue to be accessible amidst safety challenges, there are many more issues such as quality of service, socioeconomic differences, traffic congestion, transition to e-mobility and a lot more that will be explored in the next publication.
