Paper short abstract:

The failure of public transport operators to meet the population basic mobility needs had led to an increasing demand for effective passenger transport services resulting to an overgrowing fleet of privately owned shared motorcycle taxi that filled the gap.

Paper long abstract:

The failure of public transport operators to meet the population basic mobility needs had led to an increasing demand for effective passenger transport services resulting to an overgrowing fleet of privately owned shared motorcycle taxi that filled the gap. This was as a result of the government policy to curtail the global economic crisis of 1980s (which also affected Nigeria) by introducing the Structural Adjustment Program which withered funding for public transport system. However, Instead of solving the economic crisis, SAP further aggravated it and the end result was inflation. Inflation and privatisation were major factors leading to the collapse of the public urban transport system. This condition made it difficult for the transport service providers to replace their aging vehicles with new ones. However, the gap created in the transport sector was to some extent filled up with the development of the “shared bike” system in which a commercial motorcyclist operated full scale city transport service by operating a pick and drop system anywhere along the minor and major routes. It is at this end that this study intends to uncover and analyze how shared bike taxi evolved and served as alternative to the urban transport services. The sourced materials for this work included the extensive use of written records and oral information.