Social media lessons related to the development of long-distance public transit in the underdeveloped communities

Papers presented virtually at the 41st International Southern African Transport Conference on 10-13 July 2023.Over decades, advanced technology has been rapidly evolving in the public transport industry. Recent strategies to meet the user needs in public transit, are commonly centred around advanced technologies. Ground evidence includes multiple transit-related internet applications. Nonetheless, amid this digitalisation shift, most global rural areas still only have traditional transit systems. Consequently, some public commuters choose the traditional and most criticised option i.e., hitchhiking, on the roadsides and transacted over social media. Internationally, access and mobility constitute a sustainable community's fundamental policy and planning priorities. That is, improved mobility will inevitably improve rural socio-economic cohesions. That said, for the study conducted during the period Jan 2019 – Mar 2020 and Oct 2021 – Jun 2022, this paper summarises the descriptive, origin, and gender-based analyses. The objectives included unpacking the hitchhiking demand (m=880), supply (n=193), post structures, and general transit-related comments (o=151). In closing, the aim of this paper was achieved, which was to illustrate that social media can be used to inform long-distance public transport (digital) development in rural underdeveloped communities, especially where the mobility poverty is deep, transit systems are traditional, and available information technology opportunities are actively engaged. The impacts include the service competition, inter-regional, research ethics and information technology policie