Colloquia

Summary

Informal transport systems play a critical role in urban mobility across many West African cities but often operate under conditions of infrastructural scarcity, environmental pressure, and limited institutional support. In Monrovia, Liberia, three-wheeled vehicles known as kekehs are a primary informal mode of transport. Emergi, a social enterprise operating electric kekehs (e-kekehs), aims to improve the environmental, social, and economic performance of this system. Currently in a pilot phase, Emergi aims to scale across underserved cities in West Africa; however scaling e-mobility in this context requires not only vehicle deployment, but also the development of adaptable service infrastructure that can support operations.

This thesis addresses the question of how scalable, efficient, and context-appropriate service infrastructure can be designed to support Emergi’s expanding operations in Liberia and across West Africa. A Product-Service System design methodology was applied, structured through Understand, Explore, and Define phases and informed by Human-Centred Design and Participatory Design approaches. The research combines desk research, field observations, interviews, and co-design workshops to inform problem reframing, focusing on designing infrastructure that improves the performance of kekehs, drivers, and the relationship between them. This led to the development of service infrastructure concepts, which were evaluated with the company to result in a final concept. This was then prototyped through 3D modelled and evaluated through expert validation and requirement assessment.

The primary outcome is a distributed, multi-tier service infrastructure system consisting of primary (HQ), secondary (operational), and tertiary (battery swapping) stations, supported by mobile support kekehs and digital coordination tools. The system supports phased horizontal scaling and clarifies role allocation, resource distribution, and spatial logic for expanded fleet operations. Rather than proposing a fixed blueprint, this thesis contributes a framework for e-mobility infrastructure development in underserved urban contexts, offering a transferable yet adaptable scaling logic that integrates participatory insight with system-level infrastructure design.