Project Title: Assessing bicycle mobility patterns in rural Africa
Background
While rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa face significant challenges in accessing essential services due to mobility constraints, understanding these issues is paramount for sustainable development. These mobility constraints are often attributed to various factors. Notably, research has revealed that limited mobility options hinder rural communities' access to fundamental services like education, healthcare, food, and safe water. Unfortunately, there have been relatively few studies that delve into the specific challenges of rural mobility. Additionally, the scarcity of comprehensive data on rural mobility, especially concerning the most vulnerable community members, has constrained the formulation of effective development programs and policies, impeding the achievement of the African Union's Agenda 2063.
Aim
To assess the usability of cycling as a viable mode of transport for rural populations.
Objectives
- Collect urban and Rural available data (demographic, activities, mobility) in and around the rural community being studied.
- Collect additional rural mobility data using GPS trackers to connect rural dwellers from one point to another.
- The integration of both the first objective (collection of available data) and the second objective (collection of GPS data) into a multi-purpose data analysis.
Participants
The study will draw participants from rural areas who own a bicycle, use a bicycle, including those that either own or use a bicycle.
Research Methods
A questionnaire will be disseminated to the sample of participants in the selected site, ensuring that age and gender groups are equitably represented. The questionnaire will allow us to obtain a general idea of the mobility challenges specific to these communities and to build sub-samples of populations owning bicycles (using them or not) and people who have no bikes. Second, the participants will be tracked for about 30 days over two periods of the year, in the dry and wet seasons, to record their total trips. Each day, they will answer a questionnaire on the reasons for their trips. Interviews and focus groups will also be organized regularly with the community to gather feedback on the methodology, in-depth explanation of individual travels, and contextual elements. The GPS technology used is based on CEAT’s previous work. The Columbus V-990 model provides accurate and reliable data, while meeting the prerequisites of robustness, ergonomics, and autonomy, given the rural context. The device records geographical positions at a predefined time interval, along with other parameters such as instantaneous speed or magnetic heading, in the form of files that can be easily processed by computational tools. To achieve the objective of knowledge transfer and education in academia, a PhD student from EPFL is foreseen to participate to the data collection in the first study site for two months, as part of the student’s PhD dissertation. Finally, the data analysis will be carried out using an open-source and reproducible computer model, which we will build based on the methods developed in CEAT’s previous work. It will include Python codes to process automatically the large volume of data generated by the questionnaires and GPS tracking from one end to the other. The automation of data processing conducted by the post-doc as well as the PhD student, and the facilitation provided by our partner at the University of Zambia (UNZA) in setting up the system in the field, will ensure effectiveness and efficiency the study. This integrated model of mobility assessment will be a key instrument to identify areas where access to bicycles would bring a positive impact on people's lives and the local community. Ultimately, the output of this project will be an instrument to guide policy makers to areas where it will make a difference. The results will be disseminated through publications in international peer-reviewed journals by the post-doc, and potentially PhD student, as well as three open, transdisciplinary events organized at EPFL and in the communities from the two study sites at the end of the project in collaboration with local partner University of Zambia.