There is a unique anxiety that comes with boarding public transport in Lagos. This is not about the traffic gridlock that can happen anytime or, sometimes, the endless wait for a bus, it is the uncertainty of what the fare will be.
Scenario: You get on the road today and you paid 800 naira, and then tomorrow, same journey, same distance, you are being asked to pay 1,000 naira tomorrow not because government policy changed overnight, but because someone, somewhere, decided by fiat that there are more people on the road now, or rain is falling, or that the road is spoilt on a stretch of the road, or sometimes for no reason, and so a new tfare must be charged. Now, it’s understandable when there is a fuel scarcity or fuel price hike or similar issues, but those ones mentioned earlier, I do not understand.
Contrast this with London and many other well-organised cities, as I heard, I haven’t witnessed personally as of now, where public transport fares are officially published and change only through announced reviews. Commuters know in advance what they will pay, allowing individuals and families to plan their finances with far greater certainty.
For many Lagosians, transportation is the first expense they incur and the last on a daily basis. When that cost changes without warning, every other financial decision is disrupted. With context, schoolchildren will spend considerable time searching for buses they can afford, families cannot estimate monthly expenses on transport, and small businesses struggle to price their goods and pass on that cost to their consumers, and the cycle doesn’t end. Predictability, alongside affordability, are strengths of an efficient transport system.
This city, Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre and West Africa’s economic hub cannot continue like this. Lagosians should not continue to pay the cost of uncertainty. There is better.
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