Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: OnTime is a passenger transport company that was established in 1999 when the insurance giant Sanlam decided to outsource its transport services for its top officials. This document examines the challenges that OnTime faces as it seeks to grow its market by acquiring business from more corporates in order to lessen its dependence on Sanlam. The chauffeur industry in Cape Town is characterised by a lack of regulation and, as a result, there is no official data that can be used to describe the size of the industry. The lack of regulation means competition among industry players favours the two big companies to the detriment of the smaller ones. Smaller companies are constantly experiencing dwindling profits because of the dominance of these two big companies. At the other extreme, there are many pirate operators who compete on price by undercutting everyone else. The industry as a whole is experiencing growth due to the increasing number of corporations and government departments which have outsourced their passenger transport services for their top officials. While this move to outsource the passenger transportation is supposed to create new opportunities for small companies to benefit from the new business being generated, it appears that the smaller passenger transport companies have not yet benefited from this extra business. The main reason is that smaller passenger companies have been created without adequate support systems or a steady client base to sustain them through their early growth phase. On the flip side, the two big passenger transport compames are experiencing increasing volumes of business from those very same big corporations which were supposed to be the lifeblood of smaller passenger transport firms. The main reason for the phenomenal business growth for the two passenger transport companies is the fact that they belong to groups of companies which are constantly growing through the acquisition of other companies. The passenger transport unit then provides the transport needs of the entire group. Moreover, these two big passenger transport service providers have fonned alliances with most of the major airlines, hotels, and guest houses in order to be in a position to capture any business that flows from these airlines and hospitality service providers. In an industry where customers are conscious of the type of vehicles they are driven in, it is not surprising that the two big passenger transport companies are able to offer a variety of vehicles from which customers can choose. This is in sharp contrast to the small passenger transport companies whose fleet size limits the options they can offer their customers when it comes to choosing the type of vehicles they would like to be driven in. The findings contained in this document will influence the recommendations for formulating a business strategy for OnTime. The main challenge for OnTime is to grow its business by implementing drastic changes.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Thesis. 1978. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND AERONAUTICS. / Bibliography: leaves 80-82. / M.S.

Thesis. 1978. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND AERONAUTICS. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.S.

Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil Engineering. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 325-329. / Ph.D.

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

M.Phil. / Considerable research on public policymaking has been carried out over the years. A number of theoretical frameworks have been developed to try to understand the complexities of the policy process. Nevertheless, the implementation of policy remains, as deLeon and deLeon (2001) state “the most devilish of wicked problems”. It is this wicked problem that this thesis attempts to comprehend a little better in the context of public transport. There is a broadly expressed belief in South Africa that while we have developed some fairly robust public transport policies, we fall down when it comes to the implementation of these policies. However, policies are not equally complex in nature and surely therefore not equally demanding in implementation. While it is accepted that a number of political, economic and social factors are necessary for policy implementation, it is nevertheless hypothesised that the nature and complexity of a policy will influence the paradigm within which implementation will take place. Furthermore, the ‘success’ of the implementation process needs to be located within the context of the specific implementation paradigm. The objective of this thesis has been to (i) identify and (ii) apply an appropriate policy implementation framework or model to the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) programme in South Africa to understand the BRT policy implementation process that has emerged thus far and whether its very nature and characteristics place it within a certain policy implementation paradigm.

While all four of the main modes of intercity passenger transportation in Canada (air, automobile, bus, and rail) are currently subsidized, rail recovers from its users a considerably lesser portion of the total cost of service than any of the other three modes. This thesis estimates the effect this imbalance has on the passenger network in two ways: i) in physical terms -- the change in modal volumes given full-economic-cost pricing and the implications this has on network configuration; and ii) in financial terms -- the dollar cost of the economic efficiency losses suffered due to non-full-economic-cost pricing. The first element is estimated by calculating modal fares based on full cost recovery for 52 intercity routes between Winnipeg and Quebec City. The changes represent from the actual fares charged is translated into volume changes based on a set of demand elasticities developed for this thesis. The second element is estimated for these same 52 routes using the standard deadweight loss triangle methodology which measures the loss in aggregate social welfare that exists when non-optimal prices are being charged. This result is then extrapolated to a national level. The calculations show that given full-economic-cost pricing, air volumes would increase by 4.76%, automobile volumes by 0.32%, and bus volumes by 3.47%. Rail volumes would decline by 56.67%. While the changes are marginal for the non-rail modes and would not likely result in any changes to the network, rail would cease to be a viable mode on many routes. The economic efficiency distortion caused by the failure to charge fares based on full economic costs amounted to about $130 million in 1986. This cost, along with the subsidy itself, is what the social and political benefits of continued VIA Rail subsidization must be compared to, not simply the amount of the subsidy, as is currently done. This estimate of deadweight loss ignores positive tourism, energy, safety, and environmental externalities of rail, and thus overestimates somewhat the detrimental effect of VIA rail subsidies. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

D. Com. (Transport Economics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract