Photo by Eyelit Studio on Unsplash (illustrative)
On 7 January 2025, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) named Dakar, Senegal, the winner of its 2025 Sustainable Transport Award. The prize recognized the city's bus rapid transit (BRT) line, which opened in 2024 and runs entirely on electric buses.
Key facts
The BRT runs on more than 18 km of dedicated corridor with 23 stations, served by about 120 articulated electric buses.
Travel time along the corridor from the suburbs to the city center fell from 95 minutes to 45 minutes, according to ITDP.
Senegal's urban transport authority, CETUD, says the line carries about 160,000 passengers a day.
ITDP says the system lets 69% of Dakar's 4 million residents reach the center in under an hour by public transport, up from 57%.
Why it matters
Commuters from Dakar's suburbs, such as Guédiawaye, have long faced slow trips into the city, and ITDP notes that all of Dakar's residents are exposed to harmful levels of particulate pollution. A fast, electric line on its own lanes saves riders about 50 minutes per trip and offers African cities a clean model for mass transit.
Worth noting
Daily ridership is still below the roughly 300,000 passengers the system was designed to serve. The line opened in 2024, and the project took more than 20 years from first plans to operation.