Accessibility and transport challenges facing rural people living along feeder roads in Ghana

<p>Research indicates that accessibility and mobility are major problems that confront rural communities and deprive rural people access to socioeconomic opportunities and development. This study contributes to research on rural transport studies as well as on-going policy debate in Ghana on the relevance of promoting good road infrastructure and the need to promote rural transport services to address rural accessibility and mobility needs and to improve quality of life for rural people.</p> <p>Drawing from the Hagarstand's Time Geography Theory and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory, this study explored the road and transport needs of communities located along feeder roads in Ghana and investigated the effects of such needs on their socioeconomic wellbeing and access to essential services and their quality of life. The views and perceptions of feeder roads expert engineers and rural people constituted the primary data. The data were gathered from January 2015 to November 2017 and analysed using content analysis.</p> <p>The findings indicated that there is a perception that availability of good roads and transport services creates employment opportunities, opens up rural communities for socioeconomic trade, improves accessibility and mobility through transport service availability, and facilitates the movement of people and goods. It was also found that communities with bad roads lacked suitable vehicles/IMTs for transport services, and consequently the people in those communities were largely deprived of access to viable socioeconomic activities. It was further revealed that IMTs are important and serve as alternative transportation services, particularly in communities where conventional RMIT Classification: Trusted vehicles are unavailable. It was perceived that the rural people were unable to own the motorised IMTs for transportation and farm purposes due to affordability. Moreover, it was found that commercial use of IMTs such as motor tricycles and motorcycles have been banned in Ghana and such served as disincentive to their use.</p> <p>It is recommended that resilient and sustainable transport infrastructure development be embraced in Ghana to ensure the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals 1 (No poverty), 3 (Good health and wellbeing), 4 (Quality education), 9 (Industry, innovation, and infrastructure), and 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) in rural communities in Ghana. Furthermore, road engineers ought to apply innovation in the design of roads to ensure that roads are resilient to climate change. Moreover, it recommended that the <i>Road Traffic Regulation 2012</i> (Legislative Instrument (LI) 2180), which prohibits the use of motorcycles and motor tricycles for commercial transport, must be reviewed to allow the use of motor tricycles for commercial transport purposes in rural areas.</p>