A leading policy think tank, CUTS International Accra, has renewed calls for the creation of an Accra City Transportation Authority to bring order to a deeply fragmented and failing public transport system in the nation’s capital.
The appeal comes amid worsening commuter hardship, chaotic rush hours and a long history of transport policy failures that urban residents now feel daily.
Accra, home to more than four million people, continues to function as a single urban economy, even as its governance has splintered into over twenty municipal and sub-metropolitan assemblies since the old Accra Metropolitan Assembly was dissolved between 1989 and 2017.
According to CUTS, this fragmentation has weakened planning, undercut accountability and compounded transportation challenges that cross political boundaries but lack a central coordinating authority.
“You cannot run a single city with multiple transport decision centres working in isolation,” said Appiah Kusi Adomako, Esq, Director of the West Africa Regional Centre of CUTS International. “Urban movement does not respect political boundaries. Planning must follow how people live and commute.”
A century of public transport attempts
Ghana’s search for reliable urban mobility is not new. As early as the 1920s, municipal authorities in Accra and other major cities operated city bus services, which were later unified under the Omnibus Services Authority (OSA) in 1927 to provide reliable mass transit for commuters, especially workers travelling to and from their jobs.
In 1961, it became the National Omnibus Authority, then reverted to OSA under later regimes before its assets were divested in the mid-1990s.
OSA’s eventual collapse left a lasting vacuum in formal city transport provision.
Successive state operators tried to fill the gap. The State Transport Corporation (STC), launched in 1965, became the pride of inter-city and regional travel but carried a limited mandate for intra-urban commuting, and later grappled with debt and management issues.
The City Express Service (CES), established in the 1980s to supplement urban mobility, likewise faltered amid operational inefficiencies.
In 2003, responding to mounting commuter frustrations and calls for “pro-poor” transport solutions, the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMT) was formed through a public-private partnership to provide reliable bus services within and between cities, including Accra.
Initially, it helped bridge gaps left by the decline of OSA and other public operators, carrying millions of passengers nationwide.
More recently, the Ayalolo Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system was inaugurated in 2016 with support from the World Bank and other partners, promising dedicated routes and modern service standards across Accra and beyond.
However, the system was downgraded to what authorities called the Quality Bus Service (QBS) when dedicated BRT lanes were never fully implemented, leaving the buses to compete with congested traffic and informal operators.
Fragmented regulation, failed enforcement
CUTS says these historical efforts illustrate a consistent pattern: procurement-first policies, weak enforcement and political fragmentation have repeatedly undermined structured transport planning.
Central to the critique is Ghana’s Road Traffic Regulation 2012 (LI 2180), which requires private bus operators to adhere to route-based services with defined standards.
In practice, however, metropolitan assemblies issue broad permits rather than specific route licenses, and influential transport unions allocate services based on influence rather than commuter demand or data.
“You now have a city where transport supply responds to lobbying power instead of commuter demand,” Mr. Adomako said.
This dynamic has strengthened informal operators—colloquially known as trotros—which now provide the bulk of commuter trips in Accra, even as formal systems stagnate.
Recent government interventions and warnings
In response to mounting public frustration, the government recently announced plans to procure over 350 buses for Metro Mass Transit and introduced digital payment innovations such as the Tap-and-Go platform to modernize fare collection.
While CUTS welcomed these moves, the think tank warned that buses alone will not fix systemic problems.
“Procurement is necessary, but procurement alone will fail,” Mr. Adomako stressed.
“Without policy reform, coordination, and strong institutions, the same crisis will return within a few years and many of these buses will end up as scrap.”
CUTS compared Accra’s situation with global cities like London, where major transit authorities plan and coordinate routes across multiple local jurisdictions.
In Greater Accra, the absence of a similar central authority means daily transport woes persist, involving unpredictable service levels, multiple fare segments and long waits for commuters.
A blueprint for reform
CUTS is urging the government to:
- Establish an Accra City Transportation Authority with legal powers to plan and regulate transport across all assemblies.
- Enforce route-based licensing under LI 2180 using census and mobility data to match fleet sizes with actual demand.
- Invest in dedicated lanes, terminals, and modern transport infrastructure as long-term public assets, not one-off projects.
- Strengthen assemblies’ technical capacity and enforcement to ensure compliance and accountability.
“Accra does not suffer from a shortage of buses alone,” Mr. Adomako concluded.
“Accra suffers from a shortage of planning, coordination, and political commitment to treat transportation as the lifeline of the city.”
