When Transport Fares Keep Rising: Can AI and Smart Mobility Make Public Transport Cheaper in Ghana?

For many Ghanaians, an increase in transport fares is not simply another announcement in the news. It is a direct adjustment to the household budget. It affects the trader travelling to the market before sunrise, the nurse reporting for an early shift, the student commuting to campus, the teacher travelling to school and the young worker who must change vehicles several times before reaching the office. When fares rise, the additional cost follows people everywhere.

The problem is that transport costs rarely remain within the transport sector. A trader who spends more moving tomatoes from one market to another may eventually transfer part of that cost to the consumer. A business that spends more transporting workers and goods may reconsider its prices.

Parents may have to increase the amount given to their children for school. For a worker whose salary remains unchanged, even a small increase in daily transport expenditure can become significant by the end of the month.

This is why Ghana's recurring debate over transport fares deserves a broader conversation. We understandably discuss fuel prices, spare parts, vehicle maintenance, insurance, taxes and the cost of living. These are important factors. But there is another question we should begin asking: are we operating our public transport system as efficiently as we could?

Technology cannot make fuel free, nor can artificial intelligence magically reduce the price of vehicle parts. But technology can help us reduce something we often ignore: waste.

Every day, commercial vehicles spend productive time in traffic. Drivers sometimes travel through congested routes when alternative routes may be available. Passengers queue at one station while vehicles elsewhere struggle to find enough passengers. Transport operators often make decisions based largely on experience and immediate observation because they do not have access to reliable real time information about passenger demand, congestion and travel patterns.

These inefficiencies have a cost, and eventually somebody pays for them.

Artificial intelligence and smart mobility systems offer Ghana an opportunity to manage public transport differently. The objective should not be to replace drivers or conductors with machines. It should be to give transport operators, city authorities and passengers better information for making everyday decisions.

Imagine, for example, a transport management platform that analyses traffic conditions, passenger demand, road incidents and travel times across Accra. It could identify routes experiencing unusual congestion and recommend alternatives to drivers before they become trapped for an hour. Transport unions could use historical passenger data to determine when demand is highest at particular stations and allocate vehicles accordingly.

The benefit is simple. A vehicle that spends less time unnecessarily idling in traffic can potentially consume less fuel and complete more productive trips.

Passengers could benefit as well.
Anyone who regularly uses public transport in Ghana knows the uncertainty involved. You may know where you are going, but you cannot always predict how long the journey will take, whether vehicles will be available or what conditions you will meet at the station. A properly designed smart mobility application could provide passengers with estimated waiting times, available routes, approximate journey durations and approved fares.

This does not require every passenger to own an expensive smartphone. Information could be delivered through mobile applications, USSD services, digital displays at major terminals and other accessible platforms. The goal should be inclusion, not technological sophistication for its own sake.

Digital fare systems could also improve transparency.

Fare disputes between passengers and transport operators are common whenever prices change. A national or city based digital platform containing approved fares for recognised routes could allow passengers and drivers to verify prices easily. A passenger travelling from Madina to Circle, for example, should be able to confirm the recognised fare without depending entirely on word of mouth.

There is also an opportunity to rethink traffic management itself.

Traffic lights in many cities operate according to predetermined timing patterns even when traffic conditions have changed significantly. Smart traffic management systems can use cameras, sensors and traffic data to adjust signal timing according to actual road conditions. When one road becomes heavily congested while another remains relatively empty, the system can respond rather than simply following a fixed sequence.

For Accra, Kumasi and other rapidly growing urban centres, reducing congestion should be treated as an economic issue, not merely an inconvenience.

Every unnecessary hour spent in traffic represents fuel consumed, working time lost and productivity reduced. If thousands of vehicles experience the same inefficiency every day, the cumulative economic cost becomes enormous.

Ghana could also use mobility data to improve transport planning. Instead of relying primarily on occasional observations, authorities could analyse anonymised travel patterns to understand where people actually move, at what times and in what numbers. This could help determine where additional buses are needed, which roads require improvement and where new terminals or transport connections would have the greatest impact.

However, we should resist the temptation to treat artificial intelligence as a miracle solution.

No algorithm can repair a badly damaged road. An application cannot substitute for an efficient mass transit system. Smart traffic lights will achieve little if roads are routinely obstructed or traffic regulations are poorly enforced. Technology will also fail if the information feeding the system is inaccurate.

There are legitimate concerns about privacy as well. A smart transport system should not become an excuse for unnecessary surveillance. Ghana would need clear rules governing what mobility information is collected, who can access it, how long it is retained and how passengers' personal information is protected.

Most importantly, technological reform should involve the people who already keep Ghana moving.

Taxi drivers, trotro operators, transport unions and station managers possess years of practical knowledge about passenger behaviour and road conditions. They should not be treated as obstacles to innovation. They should be partners in designing it. A transport technology created without understanding how Ghana's transport system actually works may look impressive on a computer screen and fail completely at the station.

Government also does not need to build everything alone. Ghanaian universities, technology companies, telecommunications providers, transport unions, metropolitan assemblies and financial technology firms could collaborate on pilot projects.

Accra could begin with a few heavily travelled corridors. Authorities could introduce real time traffic analysis, digital fare information and intelligent traffic management on selected routes and measure the results. Did average travel time decline? Did vehicles consume less fuel? Did passenger waiting times improve? Did operators complete more trips? Did passengers save money or time?

If the evidence shows meaningful improvement, the system could gradually expand.

This is the kind of artificial intelligence conversation Ghana needs. Too much discussion about AI focuses on whether machines will replace human beings. For a developing country, the more immediate question should be whether intelligent technologies can help us solve ordinary problems that millions of people experience every day.

Transport is one of them.
Ghanaians cannot continue treating every increase in transport fares as an isolated event. Behind the fare is a larger system involving fuel, roads, traffic management, vehicle availability, passenger demand, regulation and urban planning. Some of those pressures are beyond the control of technology. Others are not.

If we can reduce unnecessary congestion, improve route planning, provide reliable passenger information, strengthen fare transparency and allocate vehicles according to actual demand, we may not eliminate fare increases entirely. But we can begin reducing the inefficiencies that make transportation more expensive than it needs to be.

The future of public transport in Ghana should therefore not be simply about putting more vehicles on already congested roads. It should be about making every journey more intelligent, predictable and efficient.

The next time transport fares rise, the national conversation should go beyond asking how much more passengers must pay.

We should also ask a more difficult question: how much are Ghanaians already paying for an inefficient transport system, and how much of that cost could smarter technology help us avoid?

Philipa Serwaa
University of Energy and Natural Resources P.O. Box 214, Sunyani, Bono Region

Email: [email protected]