Carpooling in West Africa: the Shared Mobility Revolution Just a Click Away!

EasyChair Preprint 10272, version 1

Abstract

The article focuses on the potential of carpooling in West Africa, a region where mobility is a major issue. We start from three hypotheses on the difficulties encountered by users and carpooling platforms in the region, notably the informal nature of carpooling, problems of trust and security and the difficulty of finding reliable carpooling partners. The study analyzes the different forms of carpooling existing in the region and the models of formal and informal carpooling, examining the differences between cities and rural areas. This work has made it possible to analyze the possible solutions to overcome the difficulties related to trust and security, as well as the problem of the unknown in the specific context of West Africa.

The socio-economic, cultural and environmental factors that influence mobility in West Africa are taken into account in this study, leading to avenues of reflection for the future development of carpooling in the region. Carpooling appears to be an interesting alternative solution for road users in a region where road congestion is a major problem and where the motorization rate is relatively low. This study thus contributes to a better understanding of the challenges of carpooling in West Africa and to proposing avenues for development for this practice, which remains little known in the region.

Keyphrases: Carpooling, Mobility, West Africa, digital platform, formal, popular

@booklet{EasyChair:10272,
  author    = {Raynald Ballo},
  title     = {Carpooling in West Africa: the Shared Mobility Revolution Just a Click Away!},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10272},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}