Browsing by Author "Zuidgeest, Marcus"
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- ItemOpen AccessA geospatial investigation of destination choice modelling. The case of the MYCITI integrated rapid transit bus system, Cape Town, South Africa(2021) Smith, Joanet; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe transport sector plays an integral role in a country's development and economy. Optimised transport networks and infrastructure can lead to increased economic development. Effective transport networks and public transportation systems are, therefore, essential to growing the South African economy. With an increasing demand for transportation services required by the South African population, the need exists to expand the capacity of local public transport networks. With this need declared, and grants released by the government, a high demand exists for the estimation, analysis, optimisation and forecast of public transport systems in South Africa. Public transportation studies are directly related to commuter demand as a result of commuter choices. Therefore, a key component for understanding the operational functionality of a public transport system lies in the accurate modelling of commuter choices. Although the spatial separation of activities forms the essence of travel demand, incorporating the effects of geospatial properties in travel behaviour modelling has only been formally studied in recent years. These recent studies noted a trend proposing that geospatial properties can influence travel behaviour. In the stated research, the need to investigate the effect of geospatial properties on travel behaviour was highlighted. With travel behaviour being the result of commuter choices, a multinomial logit choice modelling study was conducted to investigate the effect of geospatial properties on commuter destination choice for the case of the MyCiTi Integrated Rapid Transit system in Cape Town, South Africa.
- ItemOpen AccessA Location - Allocation Model For Pedestrian Footbridge infrastructure: A Case Study on the South Africa's National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) Network in Gauteng(2020) Mabe, Malesiba Millicent; Zuidgeest, MarcusRoad fatalities are one of the leading causes of unnatural deaths in developing countries, such as South Africa. According to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (2017), the number of road traffic fatalities were recorded to be 11 676 in the year 2016 and 42.6% of these road traffic fatalities involved pedestrian. According to the National Road Safety Strategy 2016 – 2030 most pedestrian crashes are due to illegal pedestrian crossings mainly across high speed roads (highways) (Department of Transport, 2011). The research study aims to develop a geo-spatial model to determine the most suitable location to allocate pedestrian footbridge infrastructure along the South African National Road Agency Limited (SANRAL) network in Gauteng Province. Previously road planning and design in South Africa followed international best practices, with development of the highway road system mainly orientated to serve motorised transport by primarily providing infrastructure for vehicular traffic along the highways , as pedestrians and highways were not expected to coexist in any proximity to each other. The presence of pedestrians along highways can no longer be ignored and there is a great need to overcome the highly fragmented spatial planning formed by the apartheid policies. For most non-motorised transport (NMT) users in South Africa, highways offer the shortest and most efficient direct routes, but also represent a major obstacle for many pedestrians who are separated by them. Limited studies on the location and allocation of the pedestrian footbridge for pedestrians are reported in the literature, further research in this field should be considered, especially along the SANRAL network where there are high number of residential areas along high-speed roads, this behaviour is unique and common in South Africa. Based on a literature review the factors affecting the location and allocation of pedestrian footbridges were identified, the following were factors identified: population density (serviced by the pedestrian footbridge), land use activities, socio-economic characteristics of the population (e.g. Gender, employment, race, and income level), crash hotspots/statistics (along the route), distance to access bridge and vehicle traffic volume along the route. From these factors spatial data was gathered to carry out spatial multi-criteria analyses (SMCA). The results from the spatial analysis showed that high population densities adjacent to highway, accessibility and land use are key in the location of pedestrian footbridge. The results also show that there is a strong correlation between: land use diversity, socio-economic, crash hotspots/statistics (along the route), vehicle traffic volume and population density (serviced by the pedestrian footbridge). The higher an area has these factors, the Higher the Pedestrian Footbridge location index (high pedestrian footbridge location demand), hence the recommendation to allocate in those locations.
- ItemOpen AccessA study into Healthcare Service Location Problems, Location and Allocation in the Inanda area(2020) Naidoo, Krishantha; Zuidgeest, MarcusInanda is a predominantly rural area located on the northern coast of the province of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. It is bordered by the areas of Phoenix, Verulam and Tongaat. In the context of healthcare accessibility in the Inanda area, the research aimed at investigating the problem in service location planning. This was done by investigating level of accessibility to existing healthcare facilities available to the residents of Inanda. Following the classification of accessibility problems, recommendations were made on where the facility locations can be improved or expanded to provide better accessibility in terms of location-allocation. Literature that has been reviewed focused on geographic location, GIS and accessibility measures, spatial accessibility, models used to test accessibility, service location planning and accessibility measures and metrics so as to provide a background and precedent for the service location planning carried out in the research. The research aimed to confirm that accessibility to the healthcare facilities is indeed a problem and to propose alternative strategies to overcome the accessibility problems identified. The access to healthcare service locations is dependent on a number of factors. Some of these factors include travel time and distance, available capacity at facilities, existing road network, and provision or lack thereof of an efficient public transport system. This accessibility to the health service locations was assessed by using available GIS information on healthcare facilities and using accessibility analysis to identify problems in terms of the services location as well as additional location-allocation of current and additional facilities. The analysis was based on the assumption that all service locations have unlimited capacity. Flowmap was used as the tool to analyse the GIS data and conduct various accessibility models. The different models were Expansion Model Analysis, Relocation Model Analysis, Catchment Area and Clinic Allocation Analysis, Catchment Profile, Market share of Supply Locations, Regular Proximity Count, Average Distance in Competition, Proximity Count in Competition, Lowest Mean Trip Cost Alternate, Second Best Catchment Distance and Pareto Cover Set. The results of the research showed that while the locations of the existing healthcare facilities are not ideal, most are accessible to the majority of the Inanda residents. The information on actual capacity available at each of the locations was not available at the time of the research being carried out and would be worthwhile to research in the future.
- ItemOpen AccessA Total Social Cost Approach to Public Transport Planning in South Africa(2023) Nkosi, Muzi; Zuidgeest, MarcusPublic transport has a significant role in addressing economic, social and environmental issues resulting from motorised mobility. Motorised travel, including that offered by public transport, has positive and negative impacts. It is particularly true in the case of public transport that the magnitude of the impacts is a function of how resources are allocated as well as of the spatial arrangement of transport options to service the demand. In the past, the allocation of modes of travel to service demand along corridors has primarily been based on the evaluation of marginal economic benefits. The emphasis is placed on net economic costs, despite the presence of external costs generated by the transport system and that are ultimately borne by society. External costs include costs due to accidents, pollution, noise, visual intrusions and amenity losses. Appraising transport interventions solely on the basis of net economic benefits (operator costs) is insufficient to meet the goals set out in the White Paper on National Transport Policy, which requires the provision of transport infrastructure and services to be in line with sustainability goals (DoT, 1996 & 2017). Fundamentally, Section 24 of the Constitution bestows ecologically sustainable development the status of a human right. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of a total social cost (TSC) approach to guide the selection of a public transport mode to service passenger travel demand along a given corridor. By definition, total social costs comprise internal and external costs. Internal costs include all the costs borne directly by the consumer of the good or service in question, whilst external costs are borne by society, including costs such as the risk of accidents and emissions. The external costs can be significant. For example, it is estimated that, in the European Union, the proportion of external costs as a percentage of GDP ranges from 3.4% in Norway to over 7% in Portugal and Luxemburg (European Commission, 2019). Welfare theory argues that an optimal price charged to the users should also reflect external costs, and the failure to internalise external costs means that the use of the transport system is inefficient (Maibach et al., 2008). To this end, the work in this thesis is important because it may be used to facilitate the internalisation of public transport-related costs through the use of regulations-based and/or market-based instruments. In this thesis, the effectiveness of the total social cost (TSC) approach to guide the provision of transport infrastructure and services was evaluated against the conventional modal hierarchy approach for the development of the Atteridgeville-Pretoria CBD corridor. The total social cost (TSC) approach suggest that effective road-based public transport modes for the 18 km corridor are as follows, measured in terms of passengers per hour per direction: • minibus taxi (0-2 000), iv | P a g e • standard bus (2 000- 4 000), • articulated bus (4 000- 8 000), and • BRT standard bus greater 6 500. The most effective mode for the Atteridgeville-Pretoria CBD corridor turned out to be the BRT standard bus when assessed using the total social cost approach. On the other hand, it was found to be an articulated bus when applying the modal hierarchy approach. Society would pay R4.70 to produce a passenger-kilometre of BRT standard bus service. However, if the assessment had been only based on marginal operator costs, the articulated bus would cost the least when compared to the other technologies. The operator costs would amount to R3.05 in order to produce a passengerkilometre of articulated bus service. However, the marginal total social cost for an articulated bus was R5.20, which is higher in comparison to that of the BRT standard bus service. In addition, the study found that marginal external cost (measured rand per passenger-km) ranged from 0.6% for a commuter rail service to 6% for a minibus taxi. The failure of planning approaches to capture these external costs and user costs might have undesired consequences in the long term. For instance, for the Atteridgeville- Pretoria CBD corridor case study, when assessing based-on operator cost, it was estimated that the effective mode is the articulated bus. However, when assessed for total social costs, it was the BRT standard bus. The total social cost imposed by the articulated bus resulted from high user costs compared to the BRT standard bus. From the analysed corridor, the total social cost approach is important in unpacking the trade-off required to determine the transport mode required to service demand along a corridor. The modal hierarchy does not explicitly detail the trade-offs between the operator, user and external costs. The lack of detail might then result in unintended consequences in the long term.
- ItemOpen AccessApplication of rules of transportation planning based on principles of transport justice developed by Karel Martens in Windhoek(2020) Nashilongo, Mweneni; Zuidgeest, MarcusTransportation planning over the years focused on providing mobility for car users. The focus on mobility has left people who cannot afford automobiles without access to different activities within their societies. The lack of access, in turn, resulted in social exclusion. In the book ‘Transport Justice' Martens showed that the distinct social meaning of the transport good lies in the accessibility. And therefore, accessibility should be the focus of transportation planning to mitigate lack of access and in turn social exclusion. Moreover, Martens developed principles of justice for transportation planning which focuses on identifying groups of people experiencing accessibility shortfalls to help planners focus resources towards those people who are socially excluded due to inadequate transportation systems. This paper aimed to use the principles of justice for transportation planning to identify population groups experiencing insufficient accessibility in the City of Windhoek by assessing potential mobility and accessibility in the city. Additionally, the paper aimed to evaluate how well the rules apply to a small city with a different land use and transport system to the Amsterdam case study from the book ‘Transport Justice'. To assess the transport system, the population of Windhoek was divided into groups based on location, income, and modal split. The accessibility levels and potential mobility levels for each population group per mode were then determined using four accessibility measures and the Potential Mobility Index (PMI-score). The groups were then assigned under 50%, 30%, and 10% accessibility thresholds based on their respective accessibility levels. Under each threshold, groups that contributed the most to the unfairness of the transportation system were identified and ranked based on their respective Accessibility Fairness Index scores (AFI). The results showed that most public transport dependent population groups contributed to the Windhoek transportation system unfairness. These groups are located in Havana, Okuryangava, Wanaheda, and Goreangab at the fringes of the city with low-income residents. Even with limited data, the application of the principles to Windhoek yielded an insightful overview of accessibility in within the city that showed gross inequalities in accessibility to jobs between the car owners and public transport users and between low income and high income earners. The application of the principles of justice for transportation planning produced comprehensible insight on the effects of the transportation system on accessibility to employment in Windhoek. The insight has shown that theory and principles developed by Martens can be useful in the African context where there are significant disparities in accessibility.
- ItemOpen AccessAssessment of development form and its impact on the modal split and trip generation for low-income commercial developments(2018) Botha, Marlyn Lloyd; Zuidgeest, MarcusThis topic of research was motivated through my extensive interaction in the development field and a key element which was recognized with numerous development assessments within the City of Cape Town, was the fact that our current legislation or standards applied in South Africa do not accurately inform commercial developments within low-income areas. It was observed that the South African standards and policies rely heavily on international standards which focus on private vehicle movement and networks planning which is geared for mobility, whereas South Africa and in particular metropolitan Cape Town has unique characteristic due to the City Planning Structure which was shaped by a flawed political system. The objective of this dissertation is therefore firstly to assess the impact which the built environment (TOD and TND) has on the modal split and trip generation for low income commercial developments, secondary to draw a comparison between the actual operation of low income developments and the accepted trip generation rates used in South Africa, thirdly, to assess the unique characteristics of low income developments within a local context. With this problem statement in mind the aim of this dissertation is therefore to, firstly, to establish a better understanding of the modal split and trip generation for low income commercial developments, secondly, to establish a trip generation rate which is more compatible with developments within low-income communities; and lastly to establish the benefits which can be attained through appropriate development form implementation within the low-income. The literature review section of this dissertation will review academic literature as well as recent policy documents which investigate the relationship between the development form and the impact on traffic patterns, trip generation and modal splits of development. The literature review also establishes common trends and understandings when investigating/reviewing complex data of this nature. It is also the aim of the literature review to set a foundation for the site investigation and analysis process which will be undertaken as part of this dissertation. A critical aspect of this research was the site selection process as this has a direct bearing on the outcomes of the analysis and the accuracy of the results. It is therefore critical to note that the three sites selected for this research were selected based on stringent criteria. With the site selection approach it was a key aspect to keep as many of externalities or external factors constant (Ceteris Paribus) and in this way the results would emphasize the impact of the development form on the trip generation, traffic patterns and the modal split of these developments (if any). The data collection process was done using two distinct survey methods based on the level of technology available at the sites investigated. The first method used was data collection using recorded camera surveillance footage obtained from the centre management. The second method was a manual survey method done by individuals employed at the sites and this was used where electronic data was not available. The survey/data collection process was also broken up into 4 phases, of which the first of these processes was a pilot survey which was undertaken at one of the sites earmarked for the investigation. The aim of this pilot survey was to identify the any shortcoming in the data collection process and it was at this point where all adjustments could be made to eliminate any future errors in the data set. The pilot survey also indicated whether or not the relevant data could be extracted from the camera angles available. The second critical phase of the survey process was that a full week survey was done, this was done to establish the critical peak day which would eventually be used to calculate the critical peak hour for the centres analysed as well as the peak hour factors. The aim of establishing a peak day for the various centres was to eliminate unnecessary data collection and cost, also to focus the study on peak data which will later be compared against prescribed peak rates for these types of developments. Once the peak day was established, phase three was to undertake the final surveys for each individual site and phase four was implemented in order to strengthen the outcomes of the data set, the approach of a repetitive assessment approach (three separate surveys at each site) was used. Based on the weekly peak analysis done, it is evident that the Saturday peak is to be considered the critical/maximum peak for the week. A further conclusion of the weekly peak analysis is that the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) traffic pattern differs from the weekday pattern as it is structured around a single critical morning to midday peak, with the no secondary peaks encountered as with the weekday traffic patterns. The analysis done indicates that TND development principals have a greater impact on the modal split (or preferred mode choice) than TOD as the number of pedestrian trips far exceeds the number of public transport trips generated. This trend was conclusive for all 3 sites used as part of the investigation. A firm conclusion can be drawn from modal split analysis when assessing these developments. When the development form is adequately structured around a pedestrian movement and accessibility (TND type developments), one of the main benefits are increased pedestrian traffic. The outcomes of the modal split analysis also show a positive trend when using the TOD design approach, with the benefits of increased public transport trips. When assessing all the results achieved in the trip generation comparative analysis, it can be concluded that the COTO rate is an accurate prediction for low income shopping centre developments which are built along a transport corridor (TOD design element) and which are pedestrian friendly developments (TND design element). The NDoT calculated rates are not considered appropriate for these developments as they are way in excess of the actual rates recorded.
- ItemOpen AccessCalibration of a FOSIM Model for a Section of the N2 Freeway in Cape Town: Weaving Section at an Off-Ramp(2024) Dlamini, Bongani; Zuidgeest, MarcusDriver behaviour differs from person to person depending on the driver's behavioural characteristics, the vehicle used and road geometry. Traffic models must account for this variation in behaviour to properly analyse this complex reality. Typically, the variation is modelled by distinguishing between different ‘vehicle-driver combinations', whose behaviour is established by the settings of model parameters. Adjusting the parameters to make the model deliver realistic results is called model calibration. This is done by comparing the model results with field observations and adjusting the parameters systematically until the model results and empirical data align as much as possible. Subsequently, model validation is carried out to test the applicability of the calibrated parameters on a dataset separate from that used in the calibration process. This research is aimed at calibrating and validating a microscopic simulation model for a section of the N2 freeway using FOSIM software. FOSIM, a software originally developed to simulate Dutch freeway traffic, is used by road authorities in The Netherlands and some parts of the UK to test freeway capacity. Its simplistic, intuitive, and user-friendly nature makes it a more efficient and cost-effective tool for assessing traffic management and operations and would be of great benefit to the South African market and transport authorities. Since the software is calibrated and validated for the Dutch freeway scenario, it needs to be tested and adapted to the local context in order to be applied on South African freeways. The selected network of analysis falls within Section 1 of the National Road N2 (Settlers Way) in Cape Town between the M4 off-ramp and Hospital Bend (M3) in the in-bound direction. Peak hour traffic volumes were obtained using CCTV footage supplied by the Cape Town Freeway Management System over a period of three days. Travel time and speed data for the same dates was obtained from floating car runs and supplemented by CCTV observations. Based on this collected data, the Measures of Effectiveness (MoEs) examined in the study were traffic volumes, speed and travel time. The modelling commenced with coding the road geometry and the applicable traffic demand. The calibration process was carried out using a series of steps, the first of which was a sensitivity analysis. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the relative influence of each of the parameters on the simulated output. Through this analysis, it was discovered that 36% of the parameters did not have a significant influence on the simulated output and were thus omitted from the calibration. On the other hand, the parameters that showed significant effect were carried over to the next step which included establishing the search range in which the optimum parameter values lie. This was done using the Golden Selection Method (GSM), which is an iterative, singleparameter search technique that seeks to minimize the standard error between the simulated output and empirical data. The initial model, which was run with default parameters, showed good results when assessed on traffic volumes. This model had a GEH statistic of less than 5 for 97% of the simulated values and an R-squared value of 0.88, both signifying a very high correlation between the simulated and empirical traffic volumes. However, travel time and speed exhibited high discrepancies between the empirical average and model output, with all the simulated values falling outside the acceptable range and the average percentage error reaching 40.5% - clearly indicating problems with the model. When the local conditions were calibrated based on floating car run data, travel time and speed results were improved significantly with only 21% of simulated values falling out of the acceptable range. The average error decreased from 40.5% to 3.8%. On the other hand, the traffic volume MoE worsened, with the GEH being less than 5 for only 63% of the simulated values and the R-squared consequently decreased to 0.42. The model was then advanced further to be calibrated globally by adjusting model parameters. After several iterations and multiple improvements to the model, the final model with the optimum parameter values demonstrated a significant improvement in the simulated volumes. The average GEH statistic decreased from 4.56 to 2.2. The GEH was also less than 5 for 97% of the simulated values, which was an improvement from the 63% obtained in the previous model. Furthermore, the R-squared increased from 0.42 in the previous model to 0.82. Travel time and speed also exhibited improved results when compared to the previous model, with only 1.6% of the simulated values falling out of the acceptable range as opposed to 21% in the previous model. Following the calibration process, the model which best estimated the empirical data measurement was validated. The validation results showed that even though the established parameters produced an excellent calibration model, the same parameters failed to produce sufficiently good validation results. The average GEH value had increased to 3 and was less than 5 for only 77% of the simulated values compared to 97% in the calibration model. The travel time and speed were, however, well within the acceptable range. In order to overcome the unsatisfactory GEH results obtained, the calibration parameters had to the fine-tuned further over several models and iterations. The final calibration and validation models both passed the acceptance test on all three MoEs. Statistical analysis also showed that the models were acceptable. The FOSIM model was thus successfully calibrated and validated, and the objectives of the research were duly met. Some of the take-homes from the findings of this study include the observation that using a single MoE in model calibration can be problematic and misleading. This is exhibited by the initial model that produced excellent volume predictions while travel time and speed were extremely inaccurate. The research also showed that fine-tuning the parameters to explain the calibration too well leads to overfitting the model which causes other problems. This explains why a good calibration model failed when it was initially validated. Finally, it is recommended that future studies explore a sensitivity analysis which will consider interactive effect between model parameters. It is also recommended that a more generalized models with an acceptable margin of error be developed to avoid overfitting and to enable the models to be applicable on a wider network range
- ItemOpen AccessCycle route network development and evaluation using spatial multi-criteria analysis and shortest path analysis(2018) Vorster, James Michael; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe current global trend of urbanisation has resulted in many cities today with growing transportation problems. Locally, South Africa is dealing with both urbanisation and spatial inequalities as a result of the apartheid era, with the poor very often located on the outskirts of urban areas, and therefore far from centres of employment and other amenities. Active mobility in the form of walking and cycling have been suggested as a means to address urban transport challenges, as it simultaneously promotes sustainability and improves the liveability of cities. Moreover, the infrastructural requirements for active mobility are far less when compared to motorised transportation, freeing up more land and funding for the development of community amenities. Cycling is an efficient way of travelling in urban areas over short to medium distances for a variety of trip purposes, including commuting to work or school, as a feeder to public transport services, to shops, for leisure trips, or tourism. The planning of cycle routes networks is, however, challenging as traditional methods are incapable of adequately dealing with the conflicting objectives of stakeholders and multiple spatial criteria used to measure these. Moreover, the route qualities desired by cyclists are rarely included in the design of routes. Instead a pre- or post-evaluation of route alternatives against the aforementioned route qualities is performed, which once again is not adequately addressed in the current methods given the conflicting objectives and multiple criteria noted earlier. Traditional processes are also criticised for not being open and transparent, leaving many stakeholders dissatisfied. To address these concerns, the proposed method takes advantage of the powerful set of tools for the manipulation and analysis of spatial information provided by Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and the techniques available in Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) for structuring decision problems, and designing, evaluating and prioritising alternatives. This combination, known as Spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis (SMCA), can be thought of as a process that transforms and combines geographical data and the value judgements of stakeholders to obtain information for decision making. The advantages gained from combining GIS and MCA results in the development of an effective Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS). In addition to developing and evaluating a network of cycle routes, the proposed method provides an additional means of prioritising infrastructural requirements using a metric known as Cycle Route Directness (CRD). This compares the network route distance to the Euclidean distance and where the threshold value is exceeded, it can be argued that additional cycle infrastructure is required to reduce the detour by bringing the CRD to below the threshold value. The study uses SMCA to develop a network of optimal routes, which focuses around the needs of cyclists while taking account of other stakeholder requirements, for a defined area in the metropolitan of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. The relatively flat terrain, temperate climate and proximity of poorer income areas to more affluent areas and places of employment made this an ideal area to act as a proof of concept for the proposed method. The case study showcases the method’s ability to act as a SDSS for cycle route network planning at a strategic level.
- ItemOpen AccessDevelopment of a decision support tool for transit network design evaluation(2021) Mzengereza, Isaac; Zuidgeest, Marcus; Nnene, ObioraMunicipalities increasingly have less financial resources to spend on implementation of transport strategies and plans. This situation is putting pressure on transport professionals to minimize wasteful expenditure on projects that do not deliver high transport service improvements. As such, the need for efficient, pragmatic decision making on policy direction, infrastructure expenditure, or any transport interventions is becoming very critical. Thus, transport professionals are increasingly in need of tools to help them predict with increased accuracy the outcomes of their intended transport interventions. The City of Cape Town has a Bus Rapid Transport system called MyCiTi. Current MyCiTi operations are incurring losses. The service is kept running on the back of subsidies from the federal government. There is a need for rationalization of the system. However, with strained resources, the interventions on the system have to guarantee improvements. Overemphasis on the ability of MyCiTi BRT service to support transportation during the 2010 soccer world cup event heavily influenced the design of the network. As a result, network appraisal is one area that can be done on the system to identify areas of improvement. In this thesis, decision making support will be demonstrated using a network design appraisal process for the MyCiTi BRT system in Cape Town. The existing MyCiTi network will undergo network improvement using heuristic node insertion technique leading to multiple network scenarios in a modeling environment. Agent-Based demand mobility behavior simulation will be used on each of the network scenarios to come up with network performance indicators. These network performance indicators will be used in the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model to come up with a ranking of the network scenarios and help in deciding on the optimum network improvement intervention. Overall, findings of this research show the importance of weighting of the performance indicators. Where networks that score well in the performance indicator with the high weights also rank high. In conclusion, the study has demonstrated the importance of decision making support in interventions on complex systems like bus systems. Recommendations on the possible avenues of research stemming from this thesis have also been outlined.
- ItemOpen AccessEmpirical Estimation of a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) for the City of Cape Town Freeway Network(2020) Rammutla, John Koketso; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe City of Cape Town is the most congested city in South Africa, with Johannesburg coming in second. Capetonians are spending 75% more time in traffic because of the congestion during peak hours, thus reducing time spent on leisure and other activities. Due to population growth, increasing car ownership and declining capacity of rail infrastructure, Cape Town's road infrastructure will continue to be under severe pressure if the status quo is maintained. Research shows that congestion levels in urban areas are key factors in determining the effectiveness and productivity of the transport system. Traffic congestion poses a threat to the economy and the environment. Increasing corridors' capacity by increasing the number of lanes does not necessarily solve the problem. Effective urban traffic management and efficient utilization of existing infrastructure are critical in creating sustainable solutions to congestion problems. To achieve this, it is important that appropriate urban-scale models and monitoring strategies are put in place. Effective traffic management and monitoring strategies require accurate characterization of the traffic state of an urban-scale network. Several approaches, including kinetic wave theory and cell transmission models or macroscopic traffic simulation models, have been proposed and developed to describe the traffic state of an urban-scale network. However, these approaches are limited and require significant amounts of computational time and effort. The application of macroscopic fundamental diagram (herein referred to as MFD) to characterize the state of an urban-scale network has thus far proven to be more effective than other approaches. MFD represents the state of urban traffic by defining the traffic throughput of an area at given traffic densities. It describes the characteristics and dynamics of urban-scale traffic conditions, allowing for improved and sustainable urban scale traffic management and monitoring strategies. Against this backdrop, the existence of MFD for the City of Cape Town (CoCT) urbanscale network is yet to be established and the implications yet to be understood, as in other parts of the world. The main aim of this research was, therefore, to empirically estimate the macroscopic fundamental diagram for the CoCT's freeway network and analyse its observed features. To achieve this, observed data of 5 minutes periods for the month of May 2019 was used to estimate the MFD. The results confirmed that when the chaotic scatter-plots of flow and density from individual fixed loop detectors were aggregated the scatter nearly disappeared and points grouped neatly to form a clearly defined free-flow state, critical state and the formation of hysteresis loops past the critical density corresponding with the network observed maximum flow. Further analysis of the MFDs showed that a single hysteresis loop always forms past the critical density during the evening peak in a weekday MFD. However, it was inconclusive during the morning peak period in weekday MFDs. Lastly, an explicit hysteresis loop seldom appears in a Saturday MFD when the peak of traffic demand is lower than on weekdays. In order to understand the dynamics of the congestion spread, the freeway network was partitioned into penetrating highways network and the ring highway network. The results showed that the maximum flows observed for the two sub-networks were significantly different (943 veh/hr/lane for the penetrating highways network and 1539 veh/hr/lane for the ring highway network). The penetrating highways network's MFD indicated the presence of congestion in the network whereas the ring highway network indicated only the free-flow state (no indication of congestion) during peak periods. The congestion seen on the penetrating highways network was found not to be sufficiently spread on those highways. On the 24th May, congestion on the penetrating highway network was observed during both the morning and evening peak periods, whereas on the 31st May congestion was observed mainly during the evening peak period, with hysteresis-like shape. These observations confirmed that congestion during peak periods is not homogenously spread across the entire network, certain areas are more congested than others, hence the observed formation of hysteresis loops and slight scatters. Lastly, the hysteresis loops observed in the penetrating highways network's MFD was further characterized in terms of their shape and size. First, the results showed that the slight scatter and hysteresis patterns observed in penetrating highways network MFD's vary in size and shape across different days. The shapes of the hysteresis loops observed during both the morning and evening peak periods, were type H2 hysteresis loops, signifying a stable recovery of the network with the average network flow remaining unchanged as average network density decreases during the recovery. Characterization of the size of the observed hysteresis loops showed that the drop of the hysteresis (an indicator of network level of instability during recovery phase) was smaller, signifying a more stable network traffic and homogenous distribution of congestion during the recovery phase.
- ItemOpen AccessEvaluation of the Phase 2A IRT Network in respect to the Principles of Transport Justice(2023) Parker, Taariq; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe South African Transport system is inherently designed on transport inequities and spatial segregation. This is still evident in many cities and has not been completely addressed since the prior apartheid regime. Many lower income groups are still residing on the city outskirts, far away from potential job opportunities, including the central business district. These groups are disproportionately affected by the long travel times and consequently higher travel costs, resulting in a large percentage of their time and income being spent on transport. A high-quality public transport system with a broad catchment area is required to increase the access to opportunities, in an attempt to address the lingering inequalities of the past apartheid regime. There has been a focus in South African cities on bus rapid transit (BRT) as the future of public transport (PT) trunk services. Three key features that distinguish BRT systems from conventional bus systems are the improved infrastructure, operations, and technology. The key research objectives of this dissertation were: To determine appropriate measures of accessibility in South Africa; To identify a suitable accessibility threshold that can be used for comparison purposes; and To evaluate the effectiveness of Cape Town's Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) Phase 2A route in terms of transportation planning based on the principles of justice and the identified accessibility threshold. This study has focused on the approved Phase 2A route of Cape Town's Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) system, which is currently being built, and did not analyse Phase 1 (which is already built) or Phases 3 and 4 (which are still planned for the future). As such, the study area consisted of the suburbs in the immediate vicinity of the proposed route and not the whole of Cape Town, namely, the Southern Suburbs and Metro Southeast. Due to the rail line not having a direct east-west route between these areas, the study focused on the road-based transport, i.e., private cars, minibus taxis (MBT) and Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS). A simplified network model based on zones and road-based transport (as mentioned above) was built of the suburbs surrounding the IRT Phase 2A route using QGIS software. The model zones consist of the demographic data of the population. The existing public transport facilities, i.e. minibus taxis and Golden Arrow Bus Services, were outlined as nodes and links in the model. The model was run to determine travel times and speeds between zones. Potential Mobility Index (PMI) scores were calculated for each zone and used to determine origin to destination accessibility levels (number of jobs available). Using the chosen accessibility measures, the most underserved zones within the study area were identified. The IRT route was then evaluated against this to determine whether these areas would be sufficiently provided for, by plotting the potential accessibility of each TAZ based on the IRT catchment area. Based on the analysis results, it is evident that having access to a car will allow an individual access to most, if not all, jobs in the study area within a 30-minute period. This can be extrapolated and used to assume that similar patterns would be applicable to other trip purposes such as healthcare services, shopping, education, leisure etc., as well as during different times and days of the week. Those who rely on road-based public transport as their main mode will however be stuck with low levels of accessibility in all circumstances, and even worse in certain cases such as weekends and night-time when PT services are reduced. 2 In order to evaluate the compliance of Cape Town's Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) Phase 2A route with transportation planning based on the principles of justice, various accessibility sufficiency thresholds were tested. The number of underserved reliant on public transport based on each of these thresholds that are serviced by the IRT Phase 2A route was used in this assessment. Based on the outcome of this assessment, it is anticipated that the underserved groups within the study area will be sufficiently serviced by the planned future IRT Phase 2A network. The large inequalities between those who are reliant on road-based public transport and those who have access to a car within the study area, and Cape Town as a whole, are evident in the outcomes of this study, and are exacerbated by the fact that the public transport system is generally inefficient and unreliable. The assessment of the proposed IRT Phase 2A network through the Southern Suburbs and Metro Southeast has also shown that this method of planning based on transport justice can be used as a tool to confirm whether decision makers are correctly choosing the best solution by which these underserved areas can be aided sufficiently. Transport planning has the potential to play a critical role in advancing social and economic justice in South Africa. By incorporating the principles of justice, transport planning can help to create more equitable and accessible transport systems for all members of society, including the previously disadvantaged. To support the implementation of transport justice, transportation planners must have a good understanding of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of their decisions. They should also have the knowledge, tools and skills to analyse and address transportation inequalities and implement equitable transportation solutions
- ItemOpen AccessEvaluation of when road space prioritisation/infrastructural improvements for paratransit vehicles is warranted: A case study of Mitchells Plain, Cape Town(2018) Oni, Oluyemi; Zuidgeest, Marcus; Behrens, RogerIn many developing countries, the cities have confined or absolute non-availability of modern quality public transport systems, therefore residents of these cities solely rely on non-scheduled, informal, flexible route transportation system referred to as ‘Paratransit’ to move from one point to another. South Africa being a partly developed and partly developing country also have this particular problem in terms of its public transport system. Some 65% of public transport users make use of paratransit services as a day to day means of transport in South Africa. Paratransit is the most commonly used public transport mode in South African cities as it is relatively affordable and highly flexible. However, it is referred to be very unreliable in terms of journey time and passenger’s waiting time at stops mostly, due to time wasted in traffic congestion and at signalised intersections. So, actions are needed to be taken to improve the travel speed, safety and reliability of paratransit vehicles. In 2007, South Africa’s department of transport envisioned some strategies to revitalise public transport system in South Africa whereby one of the strategies is to replace paratransit called Mini-bus taxi in South Africa with scheduled trunk-feeder services. However, this has proven unachievable, due to resistant from the paratransit association. This dissertation aims to investigate under which traffic condition is road prioritisation/infrastructural improvement is warranted for paratransit vehicles in a trunk-feeder hybrid setting. The dissertation also explored how operations of the paratransit feeders service can be improved through infrastructural improvements and prioritisation on road space using the Mitchells Plain public transport interchange as a case study. An agent-based simulation modelling tool is employed to simulate the present trunk-feeder operations at the Mitchells Plain interchange thereby investigating how the passenger travel performance has been impacted by the configuration and operational characteristics of the current trunk-feeder public transport system. The modelling tool mimic an intermodal trunk feeder operation which include: Passengers arrival at the rank and stops to wait for taxi; boarding and alighting of passengers along the feeder’s route; transfers of passengers alighting from the taxi and walking of the passengers through the interchange to connect to their respective available trunk service public transport system. The main aim of this dissertation is to develop and investigate various infrastructure developments to the road network using road space prioritisation that can be implemented and their effect on the overall efficiency of the paratransit feeder’s system. Each of the proposed infrastructural improvements through prioritisation of paratransit vehicles on road space was tested in a normal and congested traffic condition to evaluate their effectiveness on the operational efficiency of paratransit feeder’s service at varying level of traffic congestion. The effect of the various network infrastructure improvements is being tested using the agent-based simulation tool with the main objectives of improving the operational performance of the paratransit feeder’s services which will lead to a more coordinated, integrated and sustainable trunk-feeder public transport system. The result of the model analysis showed that provision of dedicated lanes for paratransit vehicles is the most efficient infrastructural improvement strategy through road space prioritisation, especially in a traffic-congested route.
- ItemOpen AccessInvestigating pedestrian safety solutions on rural high-order roads. Case-study: R71 Polokwane(2017) Mokoma, Lesedi Dibuseng; Zuidgeest, MarcusSouth Africa's pedestrian accident rate is one of the highest in the world. The percentage of pedestrian accidents to total road accidents is approximately 33% (RTMC, 2011) far greater than the world average of 22% (World Health Organisation, 2013). The problem is more acute in rural areas where 1 in 3 pedestrian accidents results in pedestrian fatalities. The ratio on urban roads is 1 in 10. The sobering pedestrian safety statistics describing South Africa's rural roads have prompted the need to research functional and effective traffic engineering solutions that can improve pedestrian safety on rural high order roads located near human settlements. This investigation is conducted using the R71 Polokwane -a road with a history of pedestrian safety problems- as a case study. Pedestrian safety risk factors and an assessment methodology for pedestrian risk on rural high order roads are derived from a review of local and international literature. The pedestrian risk assessment methodology is applied to the R71 study area. This process highlights the shortcomings of the current accident data collection process. Critical information such as accident cause and location; driver and pedestrian characteristics such as age and gender; important information such as vehicle type and age, injuries, fatalities, etc. are not recorded. The limited data minimises the depth of the analysis however a reasonable high level understanding of the pedestrian safety risk factors and the risk in the study area is attained. The R71 study area is characterised by villages, farms and an urban settlement. The prevalence of pedestrian accidents is higher in villages and lowest in the urban settlements. This is attributed to the infrastructure provision in the urban settlement. The causes of pedestrian risk on the R71 are concluded as: ● Lack of integrated land use and transport planning; ● Lack of pedestrian infrastructure. ● Poor design of speed transition zones between rural areas and villages and urban areas. A literature review of effective pedestrian safety measures that are being implemented locally and abroad is compiled. Some of the solutions are impractical for the rural South African context particularly because they are dependent on consistent energy sources and may require routine maintenance. A solution framework based on the pedestrian safety risk identified on the R71 is designed to guide countermeasure selection and design in rural contexts. In the end, solutions deemed suitable for the rural context are: effective high to low speed transition zones; the provision of fenced-off service roads and strategic crossing points; and the removal and enforcement of land use in the road reserve of high order roads. These solutions must be complemented with community training and consistent law enforcement.
- ItemOpen AccessMobile phone technology as an aid to contemporary transport questions in walkability, in the context of developing countries(2019) Chege, Wilberforce Wanjau; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe emerging global middle class, which is expected to double by 2050 desires more walkable, liveable neighbourhoods, and as distances between work and other amenities increases, cities are becoming less monocentric and becoming more polycentric. African cities could be described as walking cities, based on the number of people that walk to their destinations as opposed to other means of mobility but are often not walkable. Walking is by far the most popular form of transportation in Africa’s rapidly urbanising cities, although it is not often by choice rather a necessity. Facilitating this primary mode, while curbing the growth of less sustainable mobility uses requires special attention for the safety and convenience of walking in view of a Global South context. In this regard, to further promote walking as a sustainable mobility option, there is a need to assess the current state of its supporting infrastructure and begin giving it higher priority, focus and emphasis. Mobile phones have emerged as a useful alternative tool to collect this data and audit the state of walkability in cities. They eliminate the inaccuracies and inefficiencies of human memories because smartphone sensors such as GPS provides information with accuracies within 5m, providing superior accuracy and precision compared to other traditional methods. The data is also spatial in nature, allowing for a range of possible applications and use cases. Traditional inventory approaches in walkability often only revealed the perceived walkability and accessibility for only a subset of journeys. Crowdsourcing the perceived walkability and accessibility of points of interest in African cities could address this, albeit aspects such as ease-of-use and road safety should also be considered. A tool that crowdsources individual pedestrian experiences; availability and state of pedestrian infrastructure and amenities, using state-of-the-art smartphone technology, would over time also result in complete surveys of the walking environment provided such a tool is popular and safe. This research will illustrate how mobile phone applications currently in the market can be improved to offer more functionality that factors in multiple sensory modalities for enhanced visual appeal, ease of use, and aesthetics. The overarching aim of this research is, therefore, to develop the framework for and test a pilot-version mobile phone-based data collection tool that incorporates emerging technologies in collecting data on walkability. This research project will assess the effectiveness of the mobile application and test the technical capabilities of the system to experience how it operates within an existing infrastructure. It will continue to investigate the use of mobile phone technology in the collection of user perceptions of walkability, and the limitations of current transportation-based mobile applications, with the aim of developing an application that is an improvement to current offerings in the market. The prototype application will be tested and later piloted in different locations around the globe. Past studies are primarily focused on the development of transport-based mobile phone applications with basic features and limited functionality. Although limited progress has been made in integrating emerging advanced technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data analytics, amongst others into mobile phone applications; what is missing from these past examples is a comprehensive and structured application in the transportation sphere. In turn, the full research will offer a broader understanding of the iii information gathered from these smart devices, and how that large volume of varied data can be better and more quickly interpreted to discover trends, patterns, and aid in decision making and planning. This research project attempts to fill this gap and also bring new insights, thus promote the research field of transportation data collection audits, with particular emphasis on walkability audits. In this regard, this research seeks to provide insights into how such a tool could be applied in assessing and promoting walkability as a sustainable and equitable mobility option. In order to get policy-makers, analysts, and practitioners in urban transport planning and provision in cities to pay closer attention to making better, more walkable places, appealing to them from an efficiency and business perspective is vital. This crowdsourced data is of great interest to industry practitioners, local governments and research communities as Big Data, and to urban communities and civil society as an input in their advocacy activities. The general findings from the results of this research show clear evidence that transport-based mobile phone applications currently available in the market are increasingly getting outdated and are not keeping up with new and emerging technologies and innovations. It is also evident from the results that mobile smartphones have revolutionised the collection of transport-related information hence the need for new initiatives to help take advantage of this emerging opportunity. The implications of these findings are that more attention needs to be paid to this niche going forward. This research project recommends that more studies, particularly on what technologies and functionalities can realistically be incorporated into mobile phone applications in the near future be done as well as on improving the hardware specifications of mobile phone devices to facilitate and support these emerging technologies whilst keeping the cost of mobile devices as low as possible.
- ItemOpen AccessModelling public transport mode choice for low-income residential suburbs in Harare, Zimbabwe(2023) Mapfurira, Masimba Tutsirai; Zuidgeest, MarcusModern-day life in developing urban cities is structured around the need to access goods and services outside the vicinity of residential areas, and transportation facilitates access to such services. Like many other African cities, most of the residents in Harare sorely rely on public transport, and while the government of Zimbabwe acknowledges the need for efficient public transportation systems in the country's urban environments, insufficient commitment and political will have been directed towards developing strategic plans with clear and well-defined objectives. The development of public transport plans and policies requires a good understanding of the passengers' service quality needs and willingness to pay for service quality improvements. In this study, we use stated choice preference data collected from five high-density suburbs in Harare (n = 361) to investigate the influence of service quality indicators to travel mode choice decisions. Multinomial, mixed, and latent class logit models are developed under the random utility maximisation framework and compared to identify the best model. The model is used to evaluate the willingness to pay indicators for public transport service improvements and outline the contributions of the findings to possible policy directives. The results suggest that latent class models better explain observed choices than mixed and multinomial logit counterparts. With regards to public transport mode choice behaviour, the study classifies the population into two distinct groups on the basis of gender, income, employment status, and location. The willingness to pay indicators shows a substantial difference in the value of all the public transport attributes between the groups, except for waiting time. The willingness to pay for improvements in waiting time, which relates to service frequency, is standard at Z$65 per hour. Noteworthy is the classification of the suburbs between the groups; the posterior analysis indicates that Chitungwiza residents have the highest willingness to pay and Budiriro, the least. This research is of value to ZUPCO and other potential private players in identifying service quality deficiencies and understanding the requirements of public transport service provision at the suburban level. The strong inertia towards kombis emphasises the general dissatisfaction with ZUPCO service quality levels while providing insights into lagging areas that future policy deliberations could address. The research presents a potential performance framework to the Harare city council against which the public transport service provision can be assessed. Most importantly, the findings might be useful in further understanding the public transport landscape in other cities in Zimbabwe, similar to the high-density suburbs used as study areas in this research.
- ItemOpen AccessModelling toll impacts using congested highway assignment software – a case study of the proposed N2 - R72 link road in east London, South Africa(2021) Duze, Fezekile; Zuidgeest, MarcusTraffic congestion has become a growing burden on society. Various approaches to model transportation do not scale efficiently due to its complex nature. The estimate of the locality and quantity of traffic that passes through, leaves or enters a study area are arrived at by assumption. There could be an increase in congestion if investments in infrastructure are done based on inaccurate transport modelling. Furthermore, outside the study area, the effects of changes in infrastructure are unknown. Hence, it is necessary to model transportation networks at a larger scale than previously required. Governments all over the world are faced with continual challenges of providing infrastructures with basic amenities to their citizens. In every financial year, government budgets are always overstretched, which leaves very little for infrastructure maintenance, especially in less developed countries such as South Africa. Tolling road is one option to overcome this challenge. This thesis, therefore, studies toll road modelling options for the proposed N2-R72 link road in East London, South Africa. The proposed N2/R72 Link Road is approximately eight kilometres long and includes a longspan bridge across the Buffalo River as well as a number of interchanges/intersections within an urban environment. Tolling in urban areas is not uncommon in South Africa and is typically associated with mainline plazas supported by several ramp plazas. The strategy presumably for the N2/R72 Link Road involves a mainline plaza constructed on the N2/R72 Link Road just before or after the Buffalo River Bridge. Traffic will be attracted from the existing roads depending on the benefits and toll on the proposed link. The research problem addressed in this thesis arose from the fact that TomTom Traffic Index in South Africa identified East London as the third most congested city in South Africa. The morning and evening commuters experience a massive increase in travel times. Globally, it has been shown that congestion level does not necessarily get reduced as a result of an increase in road capacity. At the same time, there is a need for a possible of diversion to the proposed link road, which can be a choice of a road user's willingness to pay toll fees. The challenge that arises is that diversions can result in gains and losses in terms of revenue for toll agencies if travellers' chose alternative, lower class, existing routes. Now, based on the above the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM) approached SANRAL to construct a new link with a bridge. In order to finance that (with the benefit of managing traffic as well) the idea is to toll the new link. Knowing that the road user preferences are different. especially there is a need to understand the impact of tolling on traffic flows in the area. The main research question is What the impact of tolling is on the use of the upgraded link knowing that there is heterogeneity amongst users in terms of sensitivity to user costs for transport? The effect of tolling on the proposed N2-R72 link roads is being tested using the congested highway assignment software called SATURN. The way the problem is although preferably VISSUM as a ‘proper' micro model in that they model on a real-time, behavioural level. EMME models on a macro level and could have been used to accommodate all four steps in conventional models. It is tricky to use SATURN on a meso and micro level, as the micro level can distort the trip assignment if only a small (but key) part of the network is simulated (i.e. the assignment results in trips diverting around the simulation by using the buffer network). SATURN as employed in this study can operate at the meso level (buffer networks) with the junction simulation component operating at the micro level (somewhat). This report cautions against confusing the concepts of micro, meso and macro traffic models. In order to understand how the transport network may react to the proposed changes, a modelling approach is proposed. To achieve this, a traffic model was developed to represent the existing situation. This model provides the benchmark against which any proposal will be compared. This study will compare results between the existing and proposed situation in order for an informed decision can be taken on whether to proceed with the proposal based on the impact it will have on the existing network. In transport planning, various transport models are used to forecast impacts and evaluate options. This study investigates and reports on the impact of tolling should SANRAL construct a new road linking two national roads knowing that there is heterogeneity amongst users in terms of sensitivity to user costs for transport. To undertake this study a congested highway assignment model will be used based on a known case study and available old model. The literature review illustrates that with a growth of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects, toll roads would increase incessantly. Route choice by users is greatly influenced by toll and can sometimes also have effects on trip departure time and choice of mode. To model toll roads, users' willingness to pay (WTP) or Value of Time (VOT) has an important role, and generally, worker's wages is considered to be equivalent to VOT. This study also acknowledges that there is a distinguished difference between urban toll schemes and congestion pricing. The GFIP e-toll scheme is not congestion pricing, but rather a way to generate revenues for road upgrading and network expansion. It is not meant to suppress trip demand; in fact, it has the opposite effect when upgrades are made, and the network is expanded. The “user-pay” principle is viewed as a traffic demand measure, not as a means by which to raise funds for road building. The obvious questions are: What is the “user-pays” principle? How is the amount that the user must pay determined? Congestion pricing is meant to reduce congestion by suppressing demand. The objectives of congestion pricing are to reduce congestion, to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles by reducing harmful exhaust emission, and to improve the space for public and Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) modes. Revenue from congestion pricing should be used for public transport provision and not upgrading and/or building new roads. The results of the model analysis show that, since traffic growth on toll roads is increasing somewhere in the range of 2% and 6%, the impact on income cannot be negative. There is, notwithstanding, a risk of heightening maintenance charges if heavy vehicles continue to increase at an expense twice that of light vehicles. While not a single verification utilized in sight in the literature that toll roads in South Africa are looking to alleviate clog, it very well may be presumed that growth of light vehicle (Class 1) exacerbate congestion. It is the research candidate's view that research on the perception of Value of Time (VOT) by road-user needs to be found and on toll diversion, being able to classify and predict future traffic and volumes will be essential for the national roads agency and other provincial road authorities on roads they are in control for.
- ItemOpen AccessPiloting an open-source Transport Justice Tool for Southern Africa(2023) Pillay, Pravanya; Zuidgeest, MarcusTraditional transport planning methods largely promote transport-related social exclusion in favour of existing travel patterns. The monetary valuation of travel time savings (biased towards projects that serve higher income earners), thus generates more overall benefits and focus of alleviating network congestion. Typically, the general distributive principle of goods is equality; however, this can't easily be extrapolated in the context of transportation. Accessibility, in the transport context, can be defined as how well the transport network connects people with activities. Mobility refers to the variety of transportation options and how well they provide access to transit-connected opportunities and services. Mobility and accessibility are jointly crucial to enabling everyone to enter the economy and live better. Transport Justice, a term coined by Karel Martens (2017), develops a new paradigm for transportation planning based on principles of justice focusing on marginalised and poorer communities or groups of people. It is based on social justice philosophies centred on the concept of equality of resources. To enhance the process of regional transport planning, these principles of justice can be applied to and quantified in the evaluation of urban transportation systems. This method challenges transportation experts to conduct systematic studies of the degree of accessibility and mobility experienced by various demographic groups rather than continuing to concentrate narrowly on specific aspects of the greater transportation system. The objective of this study was to determine to what extent and how the approach and underlying analytical methods can be applied by developing an open-source analytical tool for transport planning based on principles of transport justice (mobility and accessibility). The research intended to firstly, review a suitable open-source software to determine if it could be the platform of choice for developing a robust, scalable and easy to use transport justice analysis toolkit for southern Africa; and then apply/case-test the chosen software in the cities of Kigali, Rwanda and Nairobi, Kenya. This research formed part of a larger Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF) project that the University of Cape Town was involved in regarding transport planning based on the principles of justice in Africa (piloting a proof of concept in Kigali and Blantyre Malawi). The open-source analytical tool developed in this study (using r5r) showed true potential, robustness and replicability to be able to compute all the relevant and potential statistics and parameters as required to evaluate the transport justice indicators of any region. Thus, the r5r model demonstrated the robustness and scalability of the code underlying the transport justice analysis tool in this study with minimal input data set requirements.
- ItemOpen AccessPublic Transport Modes: Measuring user quality perceptions and preferences in Cape Town(2023) Walaza, Sandisile; Zuidgeest, MarcusPublic transport has become increasingly important in developing nations, playing a pivotal role as the primary mode of transportation for economic, social, and cultural endeavours for numerous individuals. While there has been extensive research on the technical aspects of public transport, the customer's perspective has received limited attention. Passenger's perception of the individual characteristics of the service plays a crucial role in evaluating service quality. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that significantly influence the overall assessment of the service and those that have minimal impact. Understanding the order and magnitude of the importance of these external factors is of great importance to service providers when wanting to improve user experiences, for planning purposes, for marketing purposes as well as for fare setting. Considering this, the primary focus of this research is to provide empirical evidence on the existence of a hierarchy in transportation needs. Such evidence is provided in this research by investigating the existence of a user quality pyramid on public transport modes as claimed in literature. We do this for the City of Cape Town using the Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) method, which measures consumer priorities in a manner that is robust and transparent, by compelling respondents to make trade-offs among items. BWS is a survey technique of measuring individuals' priorities as it identifies the extremes in a given list as best as well as worst items and is used in other disciplines where prioritisation of items is required to guide decisions. In this study, 282 public transport users rank the best and the worst quality attributes in a given set of 14 quality attributes. The research findings indicate that travel time followed by affordability are the most important quality attributes in regional public transport modes. Equally, in- vehicle security followed by service transfers are the least important public transport quality attributes. We use this to construct and comment on the user quality pyramid. Index Terms Best-worst scaling, Public Transport, user quality perceptions and preferences, quality attributes
- ItemOpen AccessThe dynamic interaction of land use and transport in a highly fragmented city: the case of Cape Town, South Africa(2019) Moyo, Hazvinei Tsitsi Tamuka; Zuidgeest, MarcusThe need for more inclusive and integrated cities has resulted in a paradigm shift in the South African transport and land use policy environment where transport and land use planning are viewed as a continuum as opposed to isolated planning aspects. Issues such as residential segregation, social exclusion, spatial inefficiencies, inequality, residential informality, marginalisation of the low-income cohort continue to form part of the current planning discourse. While policy acknowledges the need to redress these issues, the urban spatial patterns in South African cities continue to trace the historical planning trajectory. Recently, congestion has become an issue in some of South Africa’s cities with Johannesburg and Cape Town appearing in the list of the top hundred most congested cities in the world. It is thus essential to understand how South African cities can address urban accessibility and mobility issues along with redressing apartheid spatial planning to attain sustainable cities that allow for inclusivity of all population groups. Like most South African cities, Cape Town is a relic of apartheid planning where the urban spatial patterns reinforce social exclusion among other issues. Urban and transport planning in Cape Town focuses on addressing issues of spatial inefficiencies, social exclusion, congestion due to rapid motorisation and the proliferation of informal settlements. It is against this backdrop that the central concern of this research is to understand urban dynamics linked to the spatiotemporal interaction of transport and land use in Cape Town to aid in the formulation of proactive urban policies. There is compelling evidence in the literature that dynamic integrated land use transport models provide an avenue through which the urban change process can be understood to aid in the development of adaptive land use and transport strategies. METRONAMICA, a dynamic land use transport model, is applied in this research to simulate and understand land use and transport change in Cape Town. A sequential stage-wise procedure was implemented to calibrate the model for the period 1995- 2005 and an independent validation was carried out from 2005 to 2010 to evaluate the model. Kappa statistic and its associated variants were applied to assess the ability of the land use model block to reproduce land use patterns while the EMME model and previous transport studies for Cape Town were used to evaluate the transport model. The results from the calibration and validation exercise show that the model can reproduce historical land use and transport patterns. The integration of the transport and land use model through accessibility improved the Kappa Simulation and Fuzzy Kappa Simulation. This showed that the model explained urban change better when land use and transport interacted compared to an independent land use model. This shows that accessibility can be employed in the Cape Town context to enhance the understanding of the urban change process. In addition to the Kappa statistics, the fractal dimension which measures the landscape complexity was used to assess the predictive accuracy of the model. The model performance revealed that the landscape patterns simulated by the model resemble observed land use patterns signifying a good calibration of the model. The calibrated land use transport model for the Cape Town Metropolitan region (CTMRLUT) was applied for policy scenarios. Three scenarios were simulated, specifically the business as usual (BAU), redressing social exclusion and the potential for in situ upgrading of informal settlements. The study found that intensive land use development along the Metro South East Integration Zone (MSEIZ) was linked to a reduction in commuting distances to economic activities which is in contrast to the BAU scenario. While these scenarios looked at the urban spatial patterns, the effect of land use patterns on congestion was also explored. The findings from the scenario simulations suggest that despite the reduction in distance to economic centres, the congestion condition in Cape Town will continue to deteriorate. Further, the findings indicate that interventions that only target land use developments are not sufficient to address congestion issues in Cape Town. Instead, to address the congestion problem in Cape Town, mixed land use and compact growth strategies need to be complemented with travel demand management strategies that target private car usage and intensive investment in transport infrastructure, especially rail, to facilitate the use of alternative modes. With regards to informal settlements, the study found that in situ upgrading could be a viable option to tackle some informal settlements. However, for proper inclusionary informal settlement policy, an approach that resonates with contextual realities would be more suitable to assess the viability of in situ upgrading based on the location of informal settlements relative to centres of economic activities. Additionally, the study revealed that instead of informal settlements locating as stand-alone settlements, some of them located adjacent to low-income housing which might be indicative of a growth in backyard shacks which is an existing housing trend in some lowincome suburbs in Cape Town. While this research has shown that integrating land use and transport in policy is potentially useful in solving urban issues, it has also revealed the value of urban modelling as a platform on which to assess the potential impacts of policies before their implementation. This is a strong case for the utilisation of decision support tools in land use and transport planning in contemporary South African cities.
- ItemOpen AccessTowards evening paratransit services to complement scheduled public transport in Cape Town: exploring alternative policy interventions from the minibus-taxi industry's perspective(2020) Plano, Christopher Evan; Behrens, Roger; Zuidgeest, MarcusCities across low and middle income countries are seeking to improve public transport services, but the presence of large numbers of independent paratransit operators complicate reforms. City officials often seek to eliminate paratransit services in favor of scheduled services, typically bus rapid transit, yet this has proven impossible to achieve. Cape Town is one such city, whose planning officials recognize that the transition to and operating costs of new scheduled services are unsustainable. Reconsidering the reform approach, the City has acknowledged a continued role for paratransit services primarily as feeders to scheduled services. This raises the question of how complementary service quality can be obtained at transfer points between scheduled and unscheduled services. The research seeks to assist operators in sharing their perspectives outside of a City-structured engagement process and to assist City officials in understanding what reform paths will be most feasible based on paratransit operator acceptability and cost to the City. To do so, this study uses a mixed methods approach using a naturally occurring example that mirrors the hybrid network arrangement as espoused by the City. The feasibility of interventions to improve evening service quality complementarity, specifically related to mismatched service span and long off peak headways, is explored with minibus-taxi operators. The two key stakeholders among operators are vehicle owners and drivers who have differing perspectives on the business and reform. Understanding these differing perspectives is critical to successful implementation of future reforms as past attempts have been met with considerable resistance from the industry. Driver perspectives were captured through a stated choice survey while owners were engaged through structured focus groups. Costs of interventions were estimated and combined with stakeholder data to indicate which interventions to extend service into the evening and maintain short headways are most likely to be successful if attempted by City officials. Results indicate that to extend paratransit services to match scheduled modes, improvements in rank (terminal) security, an increase in fares, or an operating deficit payment incentive are the most feasible of seven interventions explored. The first two require little transition effort or cost to the City but will not address potentially long headways; the third most feasible intervention addresses both service quality issues yet represents a larger burden for the City. Aligned with experience from previous reforms to eliminate paratransit in favor of contracted, scheduled services, this research finds that corporatization of paratransit operators may be less feasible than other interventions explored; this suggests that the City's policy shift is appropriate and that alternative approaches to paratransit reform that are less costly and require less onerous changes from status quo operations are feasible. By undertaking these alternatives, limited government budgets can be spent more effectively and efficiently so public transport reform reaches more residents more quickly.