Ghana's essential informal minibus network where knowing landmarks matters more than routes, moving millions daily despite being stigmatized as low-class transport.
Trotro is Ghana's lifeline — the informal minibus system that moves 85% of Accra through its streets. Privately-owned vans run semi-fixed routes while 'mates' lean out windows shouting destinations, collecting fares as passengers squeeze in. You navigate by landmarks, not route numbers: Circle, Tema Station, Madina. To use it, you need to know the city the way locals do.
The name preserves its own history: 'trotrò' in Ga means three pennies, the original fare when the system emerged in the 1960s. Post-independence Ghana needed transport infrastructure fast, and entrepreneurs filled the gap with converted vans and market logic. No central planning, no fixed schedules — just drivers chasing profitable routes and passengers accepting the trade-off between affordability and predictability.
Here's the tension: nearly everyone uses trotro, but it carries a class stigma as transport for those without better options. Well-dressed professionals board feeling awkward about using what's labeled low-class, even though the system is essential infrastructure. The drivers developed their own elaborate slang — 41 documented terms for passengers, routes, operations — creating an occupational language as complex as any formal profession. It's what happens when a city builds its circulatory system from the bottom up.