DATA WITH POWER: HOW MAPPING CAIRO’S TRANSIT IS DRIVING CHANGE FOR ALL
TRANSPORT FOR CAIRO TEAM MEMBERS:
This story is based on interviews with MOHAMED HEGAZY, co-founder and director of Transport for Cairo (TfC).
ABDELRAHMAN MELEGY, Head of Data Lab
YASMINE SABEK, Project Manager
FARIDA MOAWAD, Head of Urban Mobility Lab
This story is based on interviews with MOHAMED HEGAZY, co-founder and director of Transport for Cairo (TfC).
ABDELRAHMAN MELEGY, Head of Data Lab
YASMINE SABEK, Project Manager
FARIDA MOAWAD, Head of Urban Mobility Lab
In Cairo, data didn’t just describe the city, it is changing it.
When the team at Transport for Cairo (TfC) set out to map the city’s vast, tangled public transit network, they weren’t just building a database. They were building a new kind of public infrastructure: one that gave everyday commuters, city officials, and even the drivers of informal microbuses a shared understanding of how the city moves.
The process itself was transformative. In a society where women are often marginalized from public space, TfC insisted they be central to the research—as users of the system and also as fieldworkers mapping its contours. In neighborhoods where no one had ever surveyed a route or counted a passenger, young researchers showed up with clipboards, GPS-enabled smartphones, and transit apps, asking questions that made people feel seen. And in places where transport policy had long been shaped by guesswork, their data made it possible to plan with precision.
“It wasn’t just about making the system visible,” says TfC co-founder Mohamed Hegazy. “It was about who got to see it—and who got to shape it.”
CHARTING A CHAOTIC SYSTEM
When TfC began nearly a decade ago, their goal was bold: map every aspect of Cairo’s sprawling transit network, formal and informal. Inspired by Nairobi’s Digital Matatus project, the organization aimed to capture metro lines and buses as well as microbuses, tuk-tuks, and ferries. The scale was staggering. Home to more than 25 million people, Cairo runs on a complex web of mobility options—from heavy rail to informal taxis. “It’s the entire ecosystem—from trains moving 80,000 people an hour to a lone motor taxi,” Mohamed explains.
The transit is as animated as Cairo itself, its packed microbuses moving around on no fixed schedule, music blaring, passengers pressed shoulder to shoulder, drivers multitasking amid the traffic. “It’s chaotic, it’s overwhelming—and it’s fascinating,” exclaims Mohamed.
A team of 15 full-time staff, joined by interns and volunteers, fanned out across the city with smartphones and GPS devices. They rode hundreds of routes and logged thousands of stops. What resulted was the first fully integrated dataset of Cairo’s public transport system. The effort made the system visible—on Google Maps, in metro stations, and in planning offices across the city. “You open Google Maps today, and you can see it all,” reports Mohamed. “That visibility changes everything.”
TRANSPORT DATA BUILT BY WOMEN, FOR WOMEN
For TfC, visibility meant more than just a map. From the beginning, their project aimed to make transit data more equitable as well as build an inclusive team capable of collecting it. In a context where women are often marginalized from both public space and technical fields, TfC insisted that women be part of the mapping effort—as subjects of study, and as researchers and decision-makers.
This was important because in Cairo’s overcrowded, informal transit settings, the experience of women is distinct—and often fraught. Many women avoid the city’s public transport entirely or plan their routes with meticulous caution. Harassment is present, particularly on unregulated microbuses or in packed metro cars.
Given these issues, TfC prioritized gender diversity, even when doing so drew criticism. “Are you crazy?” TfC team members recall people saying. “You’re sending women out to ride buses through industrial zones?” But the team remained adamant. “Half of the system’s users are women. Their experience is the data.”
“We weren’t just mapping routes,” Mohamed explained. “We were mapping people’s lives—and you can’t do that accurately if you only include half the population. Equity had to start with who was doing the work.”
The risks weren’t theoretical. On one assignment, a female researcher boarded a male-dominated labor route to an industrial zone. The driver, unfamiliar with female passengers, tried to ask whether she was heading to the ‘left’ or ‘right’ factory—terms that, in Egyptian slang, can carry vulgar connotations when addressed to women. The misunderstanding caused a brief but palpable tension. “Another male passenger quickly explained,” says Mohamed, “telling her, ‘You’re the first woman to ride this route. He just doesn’t know how to talk to you.’” The moment underscored the vital role of inclusivity in understanding how different populations navigate urban life.
It was a small moment, but one that spoke volumes. These routes were tightly coded social spaces. Mapping them meant navigating gender norms, class divides, and the unspoken rules of urban life.
When the team at Transport for Cairo (TfC) set out to map the city’s vast, tangled public transit network, they weren’t just building a database. They were building a new kind of public infrastructure: one that gave everyday commuters, city officials, and even the drivers of informal microbuses a shared understanding of how the city moves.
The process itself was transformative. In a society where women are often marginalized from public space, TfC insisted they be central to the research—as users of the system and also as fieldworkers mapping its contours. In neighborhoods where no one had ever surveyed a route or counted a passenger, young researchers showed up with clipboards, GPS-enabled smartphones, and transit apps, asking questions that made people feel seen. And in places where transport policy had long been shaped by guesswork, their data made it possible to plan with precision.
“It wasn’t just about making the system visible,” says TfC co-founder Mohamed Hegazy. “It was about who got to see it—and who got to shape it.”
CHARTING A CHAOTIC SYSTEM
When TfC began nearly a decade ago, their goal was bold: map every aspect of Cairo’s sprawling transit network, formal and informal. Inspired by Nairobi’s Digital Matatus project, the organization aimed to capture metro lines and buses as well as microbuses, tuk-tuks, and ferries. The scale was staggering. Home to more than 25 million people, Cairo runs on a complex web of mobility options—from heavy rail to informal taxis. “It’s the entire ecosystem—from trains moving 80,000 people an hour to a lone motor taxi,” Mohamed explains.
The transit is as animated as Cairo itself, its packed microbuses moving around on no fixed schedule, music blaring, passengers pressed shoulder to shoulder, drivers multitasking amid the traffic. “It’s chaotic, it’s overwhelming—and it’s fascinating,” exclaims Mohamed.
A team of 15 full-time staff, joined by interns and volunteers, fanned out across the city with smartphones and GPS devices. They rode hundreds of routes and logged thousands of stops. What resulted was the first fully integrated dataset of Cairo’s public transport system. The effort made the system visible—on Google Maps, in metro stations, and in planning offices across the city. “You open Google Maps today, and you can see it all,” reports Mohamed. “That visibility changes everything.”
TRANSPORT DATA BUILT BY WOMEN, FOR WOMEN
For TfC, visibility meant more than just a map. From the beginning, their project aimed to make transit data more equitable as well as build an inclusive team capable of collecting it. In a context where women are often marginalized from both public space and technical fields, TfC insisted that women be part of the mapping effort—as subjects of study, and as researchers and decision-makers.
This was important because in Cairo’s overcrowded, informal transit settings, the experience of women is distinct—and often fraught. Many women avoid the city’s public transport entirely or plan their routes with meticulous caution. Harassment is present, particularly on unregulated microbuses or in packed metro cars.
Given these issues, TfC prioritized gender diversity, even when doing so drew criticism. “Are you crazy?” TfC team members recall people saying. “You’re sending women out to ride buses through industrial zones?” But the team remained adamant. “Half of the system’s users are women. Their experience is the data.”
“We weren’t just mapping routes,” Mohamed explained. “We were mapping people’s lives—and you can’t do that accurately if you only include half the population. Equity had to start with who was doing the work.”
The risks weren’t theoretical. On one assignment, a female researcher boarded a male-dominated labor route to an industrial zone. The driver, unfamiliar with female passengers, tried to ask whether she was heading to the ‘left’ or ‘right’ factory—terms that, in Egyptian slang, can carry vulgar connotations when addressed to women. The misunderstanding caused a brief but palpable tension. “Another male passenger quickly explained,” says Mohamed, “telling her, ‘You’re the first woman to ride this route. He just doesn’t know how to talk to you.’” The moment underscored the vital role of inclusivity in understanding how different populations navigate urban life.
It was a small moment, but one that spoke volumes. These routes were tightly coded social spaces. Mapping them meant navigating gender norms, class divides, and the unspoken rules of urban life.
ELECTRIC POLICY IMPACT
TfC’s team transformed the data it collected into valuable tools. Their digital database enables integrated journey planning and has become essential to transit engineers and urban planners. The group even designed the official physical maps now hanging in Cairo Metro stations––a tangible reminder of how grassroots data work can influence major infrastructure projects.
But perhaps the most powerful impact is how the data has shaped policy. “Our work is now part of every big transport strategy in Cairo,” explains Mohamed. One of the clearest examples came through a pilot project involving 100 new electric buses. Using the transit database, TfC identified five key corridors for electrification—routes where poor air quality, high public bus ridership, and limited informal transport overlapped. These were places where clean vehicles could do the most good, both for commuters and the environment.
“We wanted to see where electric buses could really improve the air people breathe,” Mohamed explained. “So we used our map to find those corridors.”
What started as a routine assessment—just a few pages of technical notes—quickly evolved into something far more ambitious. A small team of designers and researchers dove deep, producing an 80-page report that combined hard data with user perspectives. They studied everything from bus stop placement to street furniture and partnered with the international group Walk21 to implement a globally recognized methodology for assessing active mobility.
Rather than surveying the street from behind a desk, they handed mobile apps to real users, who tracked their experience as they moved through the city. Where did the sidewalks disappear? Where did they feel unsafe crossing? Where was the air hardest to breathe?
“To me, the sense of ownership—that this is our city, and I want to work on it with the best tools–– but staying humble and listening to people: that’s what made me proud,” asserts Mohamed.
The electric bus project became a model for just transition. Rather than a top-down technical fix, TfC viewed electrification as a people-centered transformation. “You can’t start from an electrification vantage point,” Mohamed says. “You need to start from a just transition vantage point. How do we help the micro-entrepreneurs—those driving informal buses or tuk-tuks—not be left behind but instead lead this change and benefit from it?”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CAIRO?
As Cairo continues to grow—its streets growing more crowded, its air more strained—the question is no longer whether to modernize its transit system but instead how to do it fairly, sustainably, and at scale. With the foundational data now in place, the city has a rare opportunity to act on insights that come from the ground up.
Plans are underway to expand the electric bus fleet and improve connections between formal and informal transit. Policymakers are also beginning to pay closer attention to walkability and pedestrian infrastructure, using TfC’s app-based assessments to guide targeted improvements around key transport corridors.
But for Mohamed, the real future lies in scaling this people-first approach across the continent.
“Cairo has shown what’s possible when you start with the users—when you treat transit not just as infrastructure but as a lived experience,” he explains. “Now we need to keep pushing. Cleaner air, safer streets, better access—for everyone. That’s the next stop.”
TfC’s team transformed the data it collected into valuable tools. Their digital database enables integrated journey planning and has become essential to transit engineers and urban planners. The group even designed the official physical maps now hanging in Cairo Metro stations––a tangible reminder of how grassroots data work can influence major infrastructure projects.
But perhaps the most powerful impact is how the data has shaped policy. “Our work is now part of every big transport strategy in Cairo,” explains Mohamed. One of the clearest examples came through a pilot project involving 100 new electric buses. Using the transit database, TfC identified five key corridors for electrification—routes where poor air quality, high public bus ridership, and limited informal transport overlapped. These were places where clean vehicles could do the most good, both for commuters and the environment.
“We wanted to see where electric buses could really improve the air people breathe,” Mohamed explained. “So we used our map to find those corridors.”
What started as a routine assessment—just a few pages of technical notes—quickly evolved into something far more ambitious. A small team of designers and researchers dove deep, producing an 80-page report that combined hard data with user perspectives. They studied everything from bus stop placement to street furniture and partnered with the international group Walk21 to implement a globally recognized methodology for assessing active mobility.
Rather than surveying the street from behind a desk, they handed mobile apps to real users, who tracked their experience as they moved through the city. Where did the sidewalks disappear? Where did they feel unsafe crossing? Where was the air hardest to breathe?
“To me, the sense of ownership—that this is our city, and I want to work on it with the best tools–– but staying humble and listening to people: that’s what made me proud,” asserts Mohamed.
The electric bus project became a model for just transition. Rather than a top-down technical fix, TfC viewed electrification as a people-centered transformation. “You can’t start from an electrification vantage point,” Mohamed says. “You need to start from a just transition vantage point. How do we help the micro-entrepreneurs—those driving informal buses or tuk-tuks—not be left behind but instead lead this change and benefit from it?”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CAIRO?
As Cairo continues to grow—its streets growing more crowded, its air more strained—the question is no longer whether to modernize its transit system but instead how to do it fairly, sustainably, and at scale. With the foundational data now in place, the city has a rare opportunity to act on insights that come from the ground up.
Plans are underway to expand the electric bus fleet and improve connections between formal and informal transit. Policymakers are also beginning to pay closer attention to walkability and pedestrian infrastructure, using TfC’s app-based assessments to guide targeted improvements around key transport corridors.
But for Mohamed, the real future lies in scaling this people-first approach across the continent.
“Cairo has shown what’s possible when you start with the users—when you treat transit not just as infrastructure but as a lived experience,” he explains. “Now we need to keep pushing. Cleaner air, safer streets, better access—for everyone. That’s the next stop.”