Modernising Airport Transport Without Leaving Drivers and Passengers Behind
The transformation of ground transport services at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos raises a wider policy question: how can governments improve transport services when the costs of transformation may make them less accessible to passengers and providers? Efforts to improve safety, accountability and service quality through digitalisation and newer vehicle requirements have generated concerns about affordability, driver livelihoods, passenger fares and competition between traditional taxis and e-hailing platforms.
This is more than a disagreement between an airport authority and taxi drivers. It reflects competing but legitimate interests within a transport service ecosystem. Passengers want safe, affordable and convenient mobility; regulators want accountable and high-quality services; drivers need viable livelihoods; and digital platforms seek opportunities to compete and innovate. These interests are further shaped by wider economic conditions, including vehicle costs, access to finance, inflation and household purchasing power.
This policy brief introduces the transformative transport service dilemma to describe situations where interventions intended to improve transport safety, quality, sustainability, formalisation or technological capability can simultaneously undermine affordability, livelihoods, competition, accessibility or wellbeing. The challenge is therefore not whether transport systems should modernise, but how transformation occurs, who pays for it, who benefits from it and who risks being excluded. Successful reform must consider passenger wellbeing alongside provider viability, consumer choice and the economic capacity of the wider transport ecosystem.
Drawing on a Transformative Transport Services perspective, TRATSEDI proposes the TRANSFORM Test as a practical framework for governments, regulators and transport authorities to anticipate and manage these trade-offs. Although developed from Nigeria's airport transport experience, the framework has wider relevance to vehicle modernisation, informal transport formalisation, e-hailing regulation, electric mobility, low-emission policies and transport digitalisation globally. The central argument is that transport transformation should be judged not only by the quality of the system it seeks to create, but also by the fairness and feasibility of the transition through which that system is achieved.
