The Swedish car manufacturer SCANIA sent a mission to Abidjan late last week as part of its project of bus rapid transit system or BRT it intends to establish in the city. Led by its West Africa director, Fredrik Morsing, the delegation met Adama Koné, the Ivorian minister in charge of Economy and Finance, on 7 June.
The BRT is a bus transportation system with dedicated lanes to efficiently provide mobility in large cities. The project which has passed the technical study phase, proposes to create “a smart and complete BRT system including buses, a secure ticketing system, a customer information system and a fleet management system for the planning and profitable operation of the vehicles “, the Swedish firm said last December in a statement.
According to Fredrik Morsing, during the pilot phase of the project, it is planned “infrastructure investments that are quickly achievable” to eventually “arrive at a very sophisticated BRT system in a few years.”
This first step, whose deadline has not yet been set, will see the arrival of 500 Scania brand buses with a target of 1,000 buses. The goal is to decongest traffic in a city of 5 million people that suffocates from traffic jams.
According to the technical study presented at the beginning of the year, the project plans to reach the eastern and western areas of the Ivorian economic capital, from Cocody to Yopougon, offering connections with the future metro and lagoon transport.
