Digital Matatu Project: Using Mobile Technology and Open Data Standards to Map Nairobi’s Semi-Formal Transit System
Before the openMatatus project, the matatu buses of Nairobi operated in a no-man’s land of organization, with each driver responsible only for his own small piece of the puzzle. The minibuses were not owned by a government agency and fares were unregulated, contributing to uneven fare prices, lax safety regulations, and overly centralized and congested routes. University of Nairobi, Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Urban Development , MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab , and Groupshot are working toward standardizing and opening transit data for Nairobi’s Matatus — the informal and de facto city bus system — and expanding our findings, tools, and processes globally. Building on past Kenyan-based digital mapping efforts and open source transit software, the group will produce a comprehensive framework for collecting, opening and mapping Matatu transportation data toward a mobile and equitable Nairobi.
This peer-reviewed article, published in the Journal of Transport Geography (2015), documents the Digital Matatu project — a collaborative research initiative between MIT, Columbia University, and the University of Nairobi that used mobile phone GPS technology to collect and standardize route data for Nairobi’s semi-formal bus network (matatus). The project mapped all 135 matatu routes, converted the data into the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) open data standard, and ultimately had it uploaded to Google Maps — the first time a semi-formal transit system had been integrated into Google Maps transit routing.
The article addresses four key questions: whether mobile technology can effectively collect data on paratransit systems outside formal institutional frameworks; how to structure and store such data; whether the GTFS standard can be adapted for semi-formal transit; and how open data release can stimulate broader use by technology, planning, and government communities. The research team tested multiple mobile data collection tools, ultimately finding Android smartphones with GPS tracking applications to be the most practical and cost-effective option, though battery life, device speed, and field data entry remained challenges.
Key results include the development of a modified GTFS format incorporating a “continuous stops” field to better reflect the flexible boarding and alighting behavior typical of paratransit systems — a change formally adopted by the broader GTFS community. The openly released data generated over 5,000 downloads, spurred the development of five matatu routing mobile applications, and was adopted as Nairobi’s official transit map by the city government. The data also informed Bus Rapid Transit planning by UN-Habitat and ITDP and has since been replicated in other cities including Kampala, Uganda.
The authors recommend investing in purpose-built mobile data collection tools that automate GTFS formatting, pre-positioning data collection capacity locally to enable ongoing updates, and engaging the full transit community — operators, planners, technologists, and government — throughout the data development process rather than treating community engagement as an afterthought. They also highlight the need for sustained public investment in open transit data infrastructure, particularly in cities where paratransit forms the backbone of urban mobility.