Abstract:
Urban mobility depends essentially on the planning model adopted for the territory, and on how
the practices resulting from that planning approach and integrate the modes and forms of
transport in the cities and their surroundings. Therefore, it constitutes a fundamental issue when
discussing urban development and quality of life of the population, this theme requires a global,
integrated and systemic reflection between mobility, territory planning and urban design. The
problem raised in this research is that the Metropolitan Area of Maputo, observes and promotes
the increase of displacements both in number and distance, due to the lack of technical capacity
of the authorities to proactively monitor the urban expansion, the development planning of
peripheral areas did not receive investment for the expansion and improvement of the already
deficient road network, in order to create alternative routes that facilitate and make mobility
more flexible. The failure to observe these aspects made the coverage of the public transport
network inefficient and ineffective. The main objective of this research is to analyse the impact
of planning and urban mobility on development: the case of the Maputo Metropolitan Area. To
achieve this objective, a mixed research method (qualitative and quantitative) was used, based on
an application survey and the use of questionnaires and bibliographic contents. These results
indicate that traffic capacity of arterial roads in urban areas has been saturated during peak hours
especially between Maputo and Matola and north of Maputo City Centre, there are insufficient
number of arterial roads complementary to national roads or other existing arterial roads. With
this, this research finds that there is an urgent and significant need to increase traffic capacity to
meet the growing demand for travel between Maputo City Center and the suburbs, the adoption
by the Ministry of Education and Human Development of a policy requiring students in public
secondary and technical vocational schools to enroll closer to home may also reduce demand at
bus stops.
