Efforts to reform South Africa’s vast minibus taxi industry should recognise drivers, operators, rank marshals and commuters as important sources of knowledge rather than treating the sector simply as informal or disorganised, new research argues.
Two books examining the industry explore questions around formalisation, labour conditions, governance, regulation, mobility, violence and social justice while challenging conventional descriptions of how the taxi system operates.
One of the works, A Fork in the Road?: The Formalisation of South Africa’s Minibus Taxi Industry, by Siyabulela Christopher Fobosi, examines the sector through its economic and political history and the experiences of people working within it.
Another recent publication, Blood on the Tar, Hope on the Horizon: South Africa’s Minibus Taxi Industry in Global Perspective, adds to the growing academic examination of the sector.
Operators Possess Practical Knowledge
The central argument is that the people interacting with the taxi system every day possess information that can be useful to transport policy.
Drivers understand passenger movements, traffic conditions and route patterns.
Rank marshals manage queues and coordinate the movement of vehicles and passengers.
Operators understand the commercial pressures affecting fares, vehicle costs and profitability.
Commuters experience where the system works effectively and where it fails.
The argument is not that these perspectives should replace engineering, government planning or other technical expertise.
Instead, researchers contend that lived experience should be treated as a legitimate source of evidence when authorities develop transport policies.
Beyond the ‘Informal’ Label
South Africa’s minibus taxi industry plays a major role in everyday mobility.
Fobosi’s book describes it as transporting more than 15 million commuters daily while remaining one of the country’s most contested economic sectors.
Yet terms such as “informal” and “unregulated” can sometimes obscure the internal systems through which routes, passenger queues and daily operations are organised.
The research also draws attention to African intellectual frameworks, including ubuntu, as potential tools for understanding governance, cooperation and conflict within transport systems.
Recent academic work has separately examined ubuntu-based approaches to conflict resolution in South Africa’s taxi sector, including their potential role in promoting dialogue and restorative practices.
The wider message is that African transport challenges do not necessarily have to be understood exclusively through theoretical frameworks developed elsewhere.
For policymakers, incorporating local knowledge could produce reforms that better reflect how the transport system functions in practice.
The challenge is to combine that knowledge with safety standards, labour protections, effective regulation and infrastructure planning capable of delivering a more reliable transport system.
