Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pennsylvania State University, 2005. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

M.Comm. / This dissertation explores the links between social exclusion and public transport in both the urban and rural context of South Africa, taking into account an increasing awareness to conserve energy and to reposition public transport in a more cost-effective manner. High levels of poverty and social inequality and their effects on crime, unemployment, poor education, disability and bad health are major policy focii for most political parties and government. Inadequate transport is increasingly being recognised as a barrier to employment as well as other key activities and is thus an important contributing and reinforcing factor in people’s continued poverty and social exclusion. In general, public transport is often expensive, unsafe, unreliable and uncomfortable. In many cases, it fails to provide access to key services. Travelling distances from home to work can also be very long resulting in excessive journey times. Low income households, not only in the rural areas but also in the inner cities, often cannot access adequate transport. This dissertation intends to make a contribution to the understanding of social exclusion in the South African context by deepening our knowledge about how and why people are excluded. It will identify and articulate the transport problems that socially disadvantaged people experience on a daily basis and will demonstrate how this affects their livelihoods. A major output of this research is to make practical recommendations for the provision of seamless transport services that will promote social cohesion. Although many textbooks on marketing stress the need to segment the market, this study suggests that in the field of public transport in South Africa at the present time, a segmented approach is inappropriate and that a standard approach be adopted in terms of which the same basic level and quality of service should be offered to the entire community. This study will draw attention to the fact that in cities in India, the poor and the rich often live close to each other – a situation that applies equally to South Africa. In these circumstances, the most appropriate policy would be to introduce a service that offers a consistent quality of service into all areas. The study will also refer to the need to obtain value for money, taking into account the ever-increasing cost of energy, its future availability (or lack thereof) and the need to adopt practices that are more environmentally sensitive than before.

This study has two major concerns: the identification of mode choice determinants, and the formulation of a mode choice model which accounts for the determinants defined. First, the concepts underlying users' behaviour are expounded. These concepts relate users' mode choice to several influences, the perceived attributes of the transportation system, his socio-economic characteristics, and sensitivity toward modal attributes. In this study, the latter is hypothesized to be a function of the user's time budget and other indications of his lifestyle. Thus, an individual may attach a great significance to savings in travel time as a result of his engagement in activities which put considerable demand upon his time, although most members of his income group may be sensitive primarily to the travel cost attribute. User's lifestyle may therefore create divergent sensitivities within the same socio-economic group. Previous research findings support the hypothesis that variations in these sensitivities are independent from the. socio-economic characteristics. The study's model makes use of this concept. The model is composed of two parts: the first is concerned with the grouping of all users according to their sensitivities toward attributes of the mode choice situation, and subsequently the calibration of a stochastic function to explain users' choices in each group. The second part of the model relates the user's time, age and occupation (as indications of some aspects of his lifestyle) to these sensitivity, which is an additional step to substantiate the rationale of the model and its predictive quality. The information to be fed into the calibration procedure is to be collected in a questionnaire survey on users' behaviour under choice conditions. The model is therefore a behavioural one; its basic function is to explain the predict users' choices. This approach is different, for example, from the propensity model approach, where users' preferences, rather than behaviour, are the basis for calibration. The model proposed in this study can be applied as a planning tool to demonstrate the impact of various transportation policies on users' choices. The model is capable of providing estimates of the number of users that would be attracted to public transit as a result of, for example, introducing a new transit system, improving the existing level of service, increasing parking charges or gasoline prices. Other applications include the assessment of the impact of introducing novel transportation modes on ridership under the assumption that their attributes are comparable to the existing ones. Also, since the model accounts for certain aspects of the individual's lifestyle, it is possible to link changes in the latter to his mode choice. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Motivated by disquiet that walking, as both a travel mode and as a segment of public transport trips, is not accommodated well in South African cities, this dissertation has two central aims. The first is to understand better the need for travel by non-motorised modes and within local areas. The second is to contribute to the improvement of local area movement network configuration and management practices. The research is primarily exploratory in nature and was conducted within a 'critical social science' paradigm-in which the research process was driven by a series of questions regarding the critical interrogation of these practices. It explores some of the implications for practice of a post-apartheid urban transport policy discourse that prioritises understanding travel need, managing road space, and accommodating public transport users and pedestrians. Reviews of literature, examination of codes of practice, and interviews with practitioners were conducted to trace the origins and nature of practices in the fields of travel analysis and local network planning and to investigate evidence of relationships between local network planning practices and improved local travel conditions. A household travel survey was administered in metropolitan Cape Town to gather data on travel behaviour across various income bands and in different residential locations. The survey employed an innovative activity-based method, with theoretical origins in time geography. With the use of computer-assisted personal interviewing technology, it involved members of 204 households recording their activity schedule over a 24-hour period. The data were analysed using conventional methods of filtered cross-tabulation, as well as time-space instruments. The research found, inter alia, that as a result of being routinely excluded or underestimated in past surveys, the importance of walking has not been fully understood. Walking would appear to be particularly important in satisfying the travel needs of middle-and low-income households, and walking distance findings would appear to refute assumptions regarding the introverted nature of pedestrian trips that underlie conventional local network configuration practices. In the light of these and other findings the dissertation argues for functionally 'fuzzy' local networks within which pedestrians and cyclists are accommodated on 'permeable' networks of footways, pathways, cycleways and shared roadways, while motor cars are accommodated on variously discontinuous roadway networks. The dissertation also argues for the strategic identification of local areas requiring priority attention, and the preparation of integrated local area plans incorporating co-ordinated and proactive pedestrian planning, bicycle planning and traffic calming.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX204779.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1982.

No description available.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1982. / Also available in print.