Windhoek's traffic nightmare
Taxis remain popular, buses cheapest
Fixing public transport in Windhoek and surrounding towns will cost N$4.85 billion, including N$1.23 billion for the capital’s bus service, an additional N$250 million for depots and bus stations and N$1.59 billion for operating costs. So far, the central government has helped to buy 26 new buses.Of Windhoek’s approximately 486 000 residents, only 52% can currently afford to use public transport. Taxis are the most popular at 46.2% of public transport use in Namibia’s capital, but even that can consume up to half of the population’s monthly income. Up to 87% of Windhoek’s residents are low-income earners, spend a quarter of their income on public transport, and can never afford to acquire their own motor vehicles.
So about 26% of Windhoek residents walk to where they need to go, while 2.1% use private bus services. Only 1.7% use the cheapest public transport available in the capital, namely the municipal bus services. Furthermore, about 21.2% of Windhoek residents use private vehicles to get around, 2.5% use online shuttle services and only 0.3% use bicycles to get around.
Problem exacerbated
This grim reality came to light on Thursday at the Windhoek Country Club during a presentation by Prisca Mayumbelo.
Mayumbelo is a business development officer in the Windhoek Municipality’s urban planning and transport department. Her speech was part of the Urban Transport Summit 2025 hosted by the City of Windhoek and attended by town council leadership from across the country.
According to Mayumbelo, a twenty-year sustainable urban transport master plan (SUTMP) was already developed in 2012, which was launched in 2013, adopted by cabinet in 2014, and supported by a feasibility study and a corporate funding plan in 2015. During the development of the SUTMP, it was determined that the population of the Windhoek, Rehoboth, Okahandja area could increase to 808 000 by 2032.
It was further determined that travel time with a personal vehicle, which was an average of 9 minutes in 2012, would increase to 54 minutes by 2032, and with public transport, from an average of 13 minutes per trip to 1 hour and 16 minutes. It was then proposed that Windhoek establish up to five exclusive express routes for bus services and that regular bus routes be reduced from nine to eight at the same time. Windhoek currently offers seven regular bus routes, says Mayumbelo.