Training institute, tech: How matatus industry seeks to sanitise sector

When you board a public service vehicle in Kenya, one of the risks you face is that you could get killed or badly injured, even without the matatu being involved in any accident.

There might be outliers in the Kenyan public transport sector, but whenever discussions are held about the industry, the narratives shared are far from a fairy tale.

If it is not a matatu driving on the pavement, then it is a conductor who has vanished with a passenger’s change. Or a 14-seater that has makeshift seats commonly known as ‘sambaza’, which increases their capacity to almost 20.

There are even real horror stories of passengers who never made it home after being pushed out of a moving matatu after a disagreement with the crew or sandwiched while navigating the central business district.

And since the majority of Kenyans do not commute using personal cars, it is common for matatus or drivers in this sector to go back to the road, no matter how catastrophic the incident was. In most cases, without any serious repercussions.

Oscar Rosana, chief executive of Metro Trans, a company in the public transport sector, agrees that it has been a challenge to change the matatu culture in the industry.

However, he notes, while the private sector has been working towards rewriting this narrative, the government has been lagging.

He poses a pertinent question: “How does the government expect matatu saccos to employ good drivers and conductors when there is no institution that trains them for the job?”

“My worry is, currently, we do not have an institution where you can easily get well-trained drivers and conductors,” he says.

He points out that the sector contributes at least 10 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). This is about Sh160 billion annually. Of this amount, close to 60 per cent, he says, comes from public transport. He says this is grounds enough for the government to step in.

 Even as the sector waits for the government and its agencies to step in and restore order, various stakeholders are making modest efforts to uphold discipline within their individual saccos.

One such stakeholder is Rosana, who notes that despite the industry’s negative reputation, there are pockets of positive stories, though, unfortunately, many are driven by the country’s high unemployment rate.

For their sacco, rather than picking any “John and Harry” as their crew members, they actually conduct interviews and hire them procedurally. With rising literacy levels in the country, these Saccos are increasingly able to recruit well-educated individuals who have an understanding of good customer service.

“No wonder the culture is moving away from the cartel-like employees to professionals,” says Rosana.

Saccos are also seeking feedback from passengers directly, through a special contact plastered inside a vehicle, which is dedicated to customer complaints, a mechanism that was not common before.

One way Rosana believes the culture can change is through the deployment of technology, particularly telematics. For example, since most matatus know their passengers either by name or the stage, the crew could allow passengers to pay in advance through a desired platform and allocate time to make the pick-ups.

“Since I already know my passengers, where they are located, and they have already paid me in advance, there is no need to rush,” he says.

It is the same opportunity as seen by Rita Kavashe, Isuzu East Africa board chair and managing director. She says technology has a huge role to play in sanitising the sector.

For example, there could be an enforcement of factory-installed speed limiters to avoid tampering.

“For the Isuzu trucks on the Kenyan roads, you cannot tamper with speed limiters. Can that be mandatory?” she poses.

The sector can also deploy telematics, where vehicles are geo-fenced, and this information is shared with the owners. The owner will get updates in cases such as harsh braking or when it goes off-site.

Kavashe also proposes that dealers in public service and commercial vehicles should play a role in ensuring the products they sell end up in the right hands. She insists that they should facilitate training on basic vehicle handling and troubleshooting.

“At Isuzu, we have trained over 1,000 drivers. When we sell our products, we also train the drivers,” she says.

Nelson Mwangi, chairperson of the Super Metro Sacco, says the little positive change that has been witnessed in the sector is largely due to the role the private sector has played. In his case, he says, the Sacco has been training its drivers.

This training extends beyond driving skills. With the help of counsellors, they can check on the mental well-being of their crew members, which Mwangi insists is important, considering the economic pressures of life and the number of hours the drivers find themselves working. Yet, he maintains the government needs to come up with an institution that can serve this purpose.

“Where do we source conductors? Our government does not even know. We have been asking the government to start a college where we can train them for even six months,” he says.

When it comes to road safety, Duncan Kibogong, deputy director of Road Safety Programmes at NTSA, says road safety is a shared responsibility.

Globally, he says, road fatalities average 1.2 million. Here in Kenya, the figure has been oscillating around 4,000.

“The majority of those who die due to road traffic injuries are in low and middle-income countries, where Kenya is. One life lost is one too many,” he says. “That is why we want to partner with all stakeholders: Within and outside the government, so that we understand this problem and come up with an intervention that will work.”

By Christmas 2025, the country had lost 4,458 lives to road crashes, a rise from 4,311 in 2024. The 4,458 deaths were largely contributed by pedestrians who accounted for 1,685, followed by motorcyclists at 1,148. Pillion passenger deaths stood at 432 in the period, while passenger deaths were 723, a drop from 789 in 2024. 

Some 403 drivers died in the period, while deaths of pedal cyclists stood at 67.

Kenya has a road safety action plan that seeks to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by 50 per cent by 2030.

Prof Gilbert Kokwaro, director, Institute of Healthcare Management, Strathmore University, says academia has a key role to play in promoting road safety, which stretches from research on the pain points of the sector to proposing alternatives to road transport.

“We should look at options of demotorising the roads. Regardless of what we do, if we keep on expanding the roads, they will become filled with vehicles. There are more viable and less risky ways of transporting people, for example the urban rail system,” he says.