Co-Drive: Next Stop Kumasi!

This paper describes the fieldwork and the co-creation activities related to the design concept called "Co-Drive", which engaged local people in Kumasi, Ghana, running the traditional Trotro bus service. The research aimed at understanding and probing in context how the "Co-Drive" design concept could be accommodated within the informal mobility infrastructure of Trotro service, which is well established in the country, and the local culture linked to the public collective transportation service run by Trotro drivers and mates. The paper departs from an introduction to the "Co-Drive" concept and then follows with a description of the hybrid design sessions with local Trotro drivers and mates, which happened during the Covid pandemic. Several insights on the accommodation of the Co-Drive concept within the Trotro culture are drawn. The paper concludes with a discussion on the contribution that such Co-Drive research in Kumasi brought to the current discourse on design decolonisation.