S4 Ep8: Rethinking urban transit

Recorded at the 2025 annual conference of the Structural Transformation and Economic Growth Programme, held at the University of Oxford.

If you have ever tried the private minibus routes that millions of people in low-income countries rely on to get to work, to shops, or to school, they can seem chaotic. But would it require large or small policy tweaks to make them work efficiently, and what would those tweaks be? Based on his work in Cape Town, Lucas Conwell of UCL talks to Tim Phillips about how the private minibus networks, such a distinctive feature of urban transit, can improve their service when there is little room for public investment or regulation.