In highlighting the role of prices in transmitting knowledge, Thomas Sowell in his book, Knowledge and Decisions, shares a bit of history on private run mass transit in the USA. Long before everyone had their own cars, people who owned one would pick up passengers on their way to work for a jitney, slang for cents. This practice declined after the government got involved. Commuters realised they no longer had a reliable way to get to work and they were forced to also buy cars.

Matatus in Kenya have somewhat of a similar history. Kenda Mutongi outlines the history of Matatus in her book, Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi. In the book she notes that the name matatu comes from the Kikuyu word for three, the three ten cent coins it used to cost for a ride in 1960s Nairobi. In addition, like jitneys in the US cities, matatus in Nairobi, had many crisscrossing routes throughout the cities. This ended when the government interfered in the 1990s. The same problem of cartels and monopolies as a result of regulations, cropped up in Nairobi as it did in US cities. Certain routes were now controlled by specific monopolies authorised by the government.

The reason many cities do not have mass transit is clearly therefore, not simply as a result of the car companies lobbying governments, to abandon public transport and force people into cars. It is rather that the government regulated privately operated mass transit out of business, on the behest of lobbies; cartels by another name. In short, city dwellers use personal cars because the government got involved in their daily commute.

1. Sowell, Thomas. Knowledge and Decisions. Basic Books, 1980.

2. Mutongi, Kenda. Matatu: A History of Popular Transportation in Nairobi. University of California Press, 2017.