Authors: Carlos Sabatino
This note examines how Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, confronted the challenge of building cost-effective public transportation systems to reduce traffic congestion and improve road safety.
The Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit (LRT) project is a modern transportation system designed to improve mass transit options and reduce congestion in Ethiopia’s capital. The project was launched by the Ministry of Transportation in 2008 and received 85 percent of its funding from a loan by the Export-Import Bank of China. When fully operational, the LRT system will be able to transport 60,000 passengers per hour through two lines connecting the city on a north–south and east–west axis. The first of these lines—a 17-kilometer north–south section connecting industrial areas and the city center—was completed in 2015 and has carried approximately 50 million passengers in its first two years of operation. The network runs entirely on electricity supplied by hydropower dams across the country. Studies estimate that the network will reduce 1.8 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 (C40 Cities 2016). It is Sub-Saharan Africa’s only light rail system outside of South Africa, and it was awarded the C40 Cities Award in the transportation category in 2016 for its commitment to clean energy.
