The Kenya Railways has announced that it will be reserving the last coach of the commuter trains to students, in an effort to guarantee their safety and comfort.

“For the safety and comfort of school-going children, we have reserved the last coach of the commuter trains for them,” KR said in a tweet.

According to Kenya Railways, the privilege only applies to students in primary and secondary schools.

KR also provided an additional evening  Inter-county train between Mombasa and Nairobi to cater for back to school transport when schools resumed early this month.

Nairobi Commuter Rail Service

The Nairobi Commuter Rail Service (NCRS) development is part of Nairobi Metropolitan Transport Master Plan, which seeks to create an efficient and affordable mass rapid transit transport system for the city. The project aims to carry out modernization and expansion of underutilized railway transport infrastructure facilities within Nairobi in order to attract passenger traffic from the roads thus reduce congestion.

The new Commuter system is projected to have the capacity to handle 60 million passengers annually up from the current 5M.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Cities

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),  Many cities are already struggling with environmental degradation, traffic congestion, inadequate urban infrastructure, and a lack of basic services, such as water supply, sanitation, and waste management and this is exactly the situation in Kenya.

Nairobi  Traffic Ranked 2nd Worst in the world

In 2017, Nairobi was ranked second in the world among cities with the worst traffic situation, in a report by Numbeo, a website which collects user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide.

According to the Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority,  vehicles stuck in traffic potentially cost Kenya almost $1 billion a year in lost productivity.

According to the report, the average travel time in the city is about 57 minutes. This is attributed to the lack of a scheduled public transport system and a lack of an elaborate non-motorized transport network.