What Kinshasa Tells Us About the Impact of Flooding on Urban Transport and Accessibility

The DigitalTransport4Africa (DT4A) Webinar Series is a monthly webinar organized by WRI Africa and Global with DT4A consortium partners. The goal of the series is to facilitate knowledge exchange around public transport and data initiatives taking place in African cities and beyond, especially those undertaken by the consortium partners.

This month’s session focuses on examining the physical and economic impacts of seasonal flooding on public transportation services and employment accessibility in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The study leverages general transit feed specification (GTFS) datasets collected during both normal and flooded conditions, high-resolution global flood maps, as well as travel survey data that encompasses traveler’s socioeconomic attributes and trip origin-destination information. By combining and processing these data sources, we aim to evaluate the commuting delays caused by floods, determine their corresponding opportunity costs, and pinpoint the most critical links in the transportation network to ultimately minimize travel disruptions during floods.

Justin Coetzee will present the results of the public transport survey conducted during dry and flooded conditions in Kinshasa, while Paolo Avner and Yiyi He will share the methodology and findings of the study.

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