Dar Rapid Transit (DART) DART Agency is a government entity
established by GN No. 120 of 25th May 2007 under the Exective Agencies
Act No
. 30 of 1997 and its subsequent amendments. The key role of the DART Agency is to establish and operate the Bus Rap
id Transit (BRT) system for Dar es Salaam.
Recommended:
Welcome to the website of the Dar Rapid Transit (DART) Agency in
order to avail oneself with all important information pertaining to the
implementation of the DART project. The DART project was first
conceptualized in 2002 by the Dar es Salaam City Council and was
integrated in the transportation system of the city
in April 2003 in order to tackle the transport challenges that had
already affected the residents and all who used to come to the city for
one reason or another. One of the challenges that surfaced and continued
to slow down the pace of development in social and economic aspects
were the escalation of traffic jams, poor conditions of private commuter
buses and the infrastructure that did not allow all road users to enjoy
their daily mobility.
Overview
Dar
es Salaam bus rapid transit is a bus rapid transit system that began
operations on 10 May 2016 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.The transit system
consists of 6 phases and the construction of the first phase began in
April 2012 by the Austrian construction company Strabag International
GmbH. Construction of the first phase was completed in December 2015 at a
total cost of €134 million funded by the African Development Bank,
World Bank and the Government of Tanzania.
The
first phase of the project has a total length of 21.1 kilometers with
dedicated bus lanes on three trunk routes with a total of 29
stations.The entire system is operated by The Usafiri salama Dar es
Salaam Rapid Transit (UDA-RT) under the surveillance of the Surface and
Marine Transport regulatory authority (Sumatra) Currently, the route is
serviced by a fleet of 140 Chinese built Golden Dragon buses, providing
express and local service for 18 hours daily from 05:00am to 11:00pm.
History
With
the rapidly growing population of the city, the government began to
draw plans for a rapid transit system in 2003. The government predicted
the city population to grow over 5 million by 2015 and invited the Japan
International Cooperation Agency to design a master plan for transport
in the city in June 2008.
A
bus rapid transit and a metro transit system were proposed but the
metro system was not approved due to the high construction and
operational cost involved. The project was placed under the Prime
Minister's office and a Dar Rapid Transit Agency (DART) was created
through a government notice on 25 May 2007. A 130 km bus rapid transit
was planned to cover over 90% of the city's population and the project
was split into six phases due to the large investment required.
The
initial project cost was financed by the world bank and the bank
provided $180 million for the construction of the first phase.
