Thesis (Ph. D.)(Geography)--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Summaries in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-160).

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 2, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

The justification of government support of rural transit on the basis of the presence of increasing returns to scale and the most efficient regional organization of transit is investigated. Returns to density, size, and scope at most levels of output were found. Cost subadditivity, where a monopoly firm can provide service at a lower cost than two firms, was found for many, but not all observations. The presence of natural monopoly in rural transit in a strict sense is rejected. The findings and implications are directly applicable to rural transit in North Dakota and should be helpful in informing future federal policy as well as rural transit policy, service design, and operation in other states.

Rural communities face a range of challenges associated with accessibility and connectivity. Though real-time passenger information systems (RTPIS) have been long heralded as offering the potential to mitigate some of these challenges their deployment in rural areas has been very limited. The lack of real-time passenger information has been identified as a contributing factor to a multitude of issues, such as high car usage, low public transport use and travel uncertainty. There is considerable potential for appropriate technologies to contribute to the alleviation of these issues, as evidence exists that they can influence travel behaviour, and cultivate positive attitudes towards the service and the operator. This thesis investigated the interplay between rural passenger experience and real-time information provision. Overall, this work aims to provide an initial stepping point on to understanding the interplay between passenger behaviour, disruptions, passenger experience, and real-time information. In order to explore the aforementioned, first, a series of interviews and focus groups with rural public transport passengers, rural transport operators, government agencies and members of academia have been carried out to study the rural passengers' responses to planned and unplanned travel disruption. Based on these i) a conceptual model that aims to describe the passenger recovery phases to disruption and the associated passenger information requirements, ii) and a framework that highlights characteristics of transport behaviour, and aligns them with drivers of transport behaviour adaptation have been created. Next, through a series of co-designed sessions in various rural areas throughout the UK a mobile technology probe, which provides public transport real time information to the passengers has been developed. Then using the technology probe a two-week before-and-after intervention study with 15 participants has been carried out. The results indicate that real-time information provided through the technology probe adjusted the travel behaviour of the participants. Namely, it improved the utilisation of waiting time of the participants, improved the efficiency of their travelling, and enabled them to find alternatives when needed. Further, to get a better picture of the effect of real-time information on rural travellers, during the intervention study 6 of the participants in their everyday travels for 7 days have been actively observed by the author. The outcomes from this supplemented the data from the study and illustrated how the rural public transport travellers used the system in their day-to-day travels. Finally, all our findings have been combined to co-create a system design with rural public transport passengers that aims to improve their experience during disruption. The final design mainly concentrated on providing information regarding pre-trip, on-trip and on boarding point, journey planning, supporting the rural passenger experience through social media, and disruption. In order to evaluate the applicability and suitability of the design, and explore how it relates to the needs of the rural passengers, two focus groups have been conducted. The results of the evaluation activity illustrate that the mobile RTPI system design was perceived as highly useful and relevant to the needs of the rural passenger.

The story of transport and accessibility problems in rural Australia is very similar to other wealthy countries with low rural densities and long distances such as the US and Canada ??? little or no public transport, very high levels of car ownership, and poor service provision. During the past two decades rationalisation and privatisation of services has led to the closure of many basic services in rural Australia. The withdrawal of services has necessitated longer distance travel for many rural residents ??? a problem which has been exacerbated by the rationalisation of public transport services. As a result there have emerged severe accessibility and mobility problems in rural areas, despite the presence of high levels of car ownership in such areas. In terms of rural transportation, the situation in Australia is characterised by two different features; first, poor public transport provision (or non-existence). Second; high levels of car ownership among rural residents. However, high levels of car ownership do not reflect high levels of prosperity; this is likely to indicate a situation of &quotenforced ownership&quot in response to declining levels of public transport provision. Furthermore, many rural residents neither own a car nor have access to a reliable public transport system due to socio-economic and location-based circumstances. Previous research has shown that these residents generally belong to groups who include the elderly, teenagers, students, Indigenous residents, unemployed persons and low-income households. Such groups have been termed transport-disadvantaged. The contention of this thesis, however, is that such groups are in a state of &quottransport need&quot given their range of transport related problems. This is one dimension of the accessibility problem in rural Australia, which has yet to be investigated. This thesis is concerned with the measurement of transport need through the development of several transport need indices using available census data. The key objective of this thesis is to investigate the relevance and suitability of need indices for identifying the relative spatial distribution of transport needs in rural areas. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is used for the development, analysis and visualisation of the transport need index. This thesis examines transportation needs in rural NSW simply by measuring &quotdemand&quot and &quotsupply&quot components of transport. To measure the demand index, some socio-economic characteristics of population are involved including: the elderly, no or low car owning households, Indigenous people, students, children, unemployed persons, low-income households, and accessibility. A weight has been assigned to each component based on its relative importance among the other components. Weighted values are then standardised based on 100. To measure the supply index, six components, which represent the availability of various kinds of transport in rural NSW are involved and have been calculated by assigning weights and standardising to 100. These are: CountryLink rail services, CountryLink coach and bus services, Regional Services, Community Transport Program, Wheelchair taxi services, and School Buses. The final transport need for rural NSW is calculated by dividing demand index by supply index. It simply quantifies transportation needs across the rural Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) of NSW. In addition, this thesis discusses the potential and limitations of GIS and our transport need indices to be used as input to decisions about improvements in provision of services, and coordination of existing services to better meet identified needs, for the transport disadvantaged in rural NSW. In essence, this thesis is an attempt to make Australian transport and social services planners aware of the value of a need based transport-planning methodology.

The story of transport and accessibility problems in rural Australia is very similar to other wealthy countries with low rural densities and long distances such as the US and Canada ??? little or no public transport, very high levels of car ownership, and poor service provision. During the past two decades rationalisation and privatisation of services has led to the closure of many basic services in rural Australia. The withdrawal of services has necessitated longer distance travel for many rural residents ??? a problem which has been exacerbated by the rationalisation of public transport services. As a result there have emerged severe accessibility and mobility problems in rural areas, despite the presence of high levels of car ownership in such areas. In terms of rural transportation, the situation in Australia is characterised by two different features; first, poor public transport provision (or non-existence). Second; high levels of car ownership among rural residents. However, high levels of car ownership do not reflect high levels of prosperity; this is likely to indicate a situation of &quotenforced ownership&quot in response to declining levels of public transport provision. Furthermore, many rural residents neither own a car nor have access to a reliable public transport system due to socio-economic and location-based circumstances. Previous research has shown that these residents generally belong to groups who include the elderly, teenagers, students, Indigenous residents, unemployed persons and low-income households. Such groups have been termed transport-disadvantaged. The contention of this thesis, however, is that such groups are in a state of &quottransport need&quot given their range of transport related problems. This is one dimension of the accessibility problem in rural Australia, which has yet to be investigated. This thesis is concerned with the measurement of transport need through the development of several transport need indices using available census data. The key objective of this thesis is to investigate the relevance and suitability of need indices for identifying the relative spatial distribution of transport needs in rural areas. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is used for the development, analysis and visualisation of the transport need index. This thesis examines transportation needs in rural NSW simply by measuring &quotdemand&quot and &quotsupply&quot components of transport. To measure the demand index, some socio-economic characteristics of population are involved including: the elderly, no or low car owning households, Indigenous people, students, children, unemployed persons, low-income households, and accessibility. A weight has been assigned to each component based on its relative importance among the other components. Weighted values are then standardised based on 100. To measure the supply index, six components, which represent the availability of various kinds of transport in rural NSW are involved and have been calculated by assigning weights and standardising to 100. These are: CountryLink rail services, CountryLink coach and bus services, Regional Services, Community Transport Program, Wheelchair taxi services, and School Buses. The final transport need for rural NSW is calculated by dividing demand index by supply index. It simply quantifies transportation needs across the rural Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) of NSW. In addition, this thesis discusses the potential and limitations of GIS and our transport need indices to be used as input to decisions about improvements in provision of services, and coordination of existing services to better meet identified needs, for the transport disadvantaged in rural NSW. In essence, this thesis is an attempt to make Australian transport and social services planners aware of the value of a need based transport-planning methodology.

Thesis (M. Sc.(Urban Plan.))--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-88).

Advances in oil extraction technology such as hydraulic fracturing have improved capabilities to extract and produce oil in the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations located in North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. From 2004 to the present, there has been a significant increase in oil rigs and new oil wells in these areas, resulting in increased impacts to the local, county, state, and federal roadway network. Traditional methods of rural traffic forecasting using an established growth rate are not sufficient under the changing traffic levels. The goal of this research is to develop a traffic model that will improve segment specific traffic forecasts for use in highway design and planning. The traffic model will consist of five main components: 1) a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) network model of local, county, state and federal roads, 2) a truck costing model for use in estimating segment specific user costs, 3) a spatial oil location model to estimate future oil development areas, 4) a series of mathematical programming models to optimize a multi-region oil development area for nine individual input/output movements, and 5) an aggregation of multiple routings to segment specific traffic levels in a GIS network model.

South Africa does not currently have a strong bicycle culture, as most cycling is of a recreational nature. At the same time, inadequate and expensive transport, particularly for many rural individuals and groups, is one of the significant features of poverty in South Africa's rural areas. Many people do not have easy access to vital social and economic activities and opportunities. Because of transport limitations, attempts to promote bicycle transport, by establishing micro bicycle retail outlets in identified rural communities have been in place since the year 2000 in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Cycling is viewed as a relatively cheap and efficient means of transport, which has the potential to reduce the transport burden of groups and individuals designated under the term the 'rural poor'. This study is an exploratory qualitative investigation. Its main aim was to uncover and understand (through observation and interviews), the perceptions of identified rural groups and individuals about the potential of bicycle transport in improving rural travel of up to 20 kilometres. The study sought to identify factors influencing bicycle ownership and use, and whether or not this has become the prerogative of both male and female members of rural communities. The key issues which emerged from the collected data, point to the following: that household economic status; cultural prohibitions; self interests of key stake holders; lack of credit facilities and or subsidies, are the main obstacles for many rural inhabitants with interest in undertaking investment in bicycle transport resources. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.