Browsing by Subject "City of Cape Town"

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    Open Access
    An analysis of household water consumption in the City of Cape Town using a panel data set (2016-2020)
    (2022) Kaplan, Anna Leah; Er, Sebnem; Visser, Martine
    Understanding consumer behaviour with respect to water consumption has become an active field of study. This thesis uses a household billing dataset that tracks the quantity of water consumed by households in the City of Cape Town (CoCT) from 2016 to 2020. The household billing data was filtered to include only household observations and then aggregated to the ward level. As a result, the aggregated data is a balanced spatial panel dataset including 20 quarterly observations for each of the 88 wards. Using the billing data set, multiple linear regression models, panel data models as well as spatial panel models were implemented to predict ward level water consumption. Using several visualisations and statistical measures, this thesis found that consumption dropped significantly during the drought period (2016-2018) and also found spatial clusters of water consumption in the CoCT. The data showed that before and after the drought, water consumption exhibited a seasonal pattern which was absent during the drought period. It is also noted that although consumption levels after the drought increase, they do not rise as high as pre-drought levels. The linear models implemented in this thesis resulted in an Adjusted R-squared values of up to 0.85, implying that the independent variables used in the models explain a large amount of variation observed in the dependent variable, quantity of ward level water consumption.
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    Open Access
    Benefits management and its value to the organisation: a case study in a private organisation
    (2025) Ngobeni, Ntombifuthi; Massyn, Mark
    This research evaluates the application of the Benefits Realisation Management (BRM) particularly in the private sector with strategy implementation projects. The key objectives of this study are: to evaluate the alignment of project benefits and the organisations strategic goals, to understand the processes followed to ensure the benefits identified are realised, and to further understand the challenges that the organisation may be facing that influence the adoption of BRM as well as gain insights on potential aiders that can help accelerate the adoption of BRM in the private sector. Ten senior and executive management team members voluntarily participated in the study, and most of the participants completed the interview sessions via face-to-face meetings in the Western Cape, City of Cape Town and others were interviewed online. The analysis of the data has revealed that, the organisation considers project success as the project that has met the triple constraints criteria, delivered on time, on budget and on the agreed scope which is considered to be the project management success as it is still based on the traditional approach to project management even though project success view has shifted overtime and according to literature, the project success is based on the Project Management success as well as the customer satisfaction and the value that the project change has brought about (project benefits). The organisation puts in effort at the pre-initiation phase of the project by identifying the benefits and ensuring it aligns to the strategic objectives of the organisation to obtain funding as this has become a requirement to justify projects and get the board's approval. Whilst this is the first step to the BRM process, the study reveals that the benefits identified at the beginning of the are not tracked or monitored throughout the project or post completion. Also, the findings reveal that the projects that do not require funding from the board do not necessarily have to align to the organisations strategic goals and some do not follow the project governance processes thus, the BRM process is not fully implemented. Another key finding is that the organisation still regards project success based on the traditional approach to project management, which is the project deliverable being met, on time and on budget, they confirm that the benefits realisation should be part of the project measure of success, and the view of project success needs to be based on the project value which includes the realisation of the benefits anticipated. The organisation still does not have a clear understanding of who the benefit accountability should lie with, the study reveals that there is a lack of accountability in the organisation as well as the unclarity of who is or should be accountable for benefit realisation. Although the senior management teams believe that the BRM process should be implemented in the organisation and applied across the divisions, there are gaps within the organisation which mainly includes, the education of the business on the BRM process itself, setting up the BRM process and standardising it across the departments, reinforcement of accountability, stakeholder involvement and gaining Top Management buy-in. The correction of these should then aid the adoption of the BRM process. The limitations of this research are the region and sector in which the study was conducted. The study was conducted in a single private organisation headquarter in the Western Cape region in South Africa. The organisations sector is the retail sector. Only certain departments that implement strategy driven projects were invited to participate to the study. The study can be expanded, and the recommendations are outlined in the report.
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    Empirical Estimation of a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) for the City of Cape Town Freeway Network
    (2020) Rammutla, John Koketso; Zuidgeest, Marcus
    The 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.
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    Identification of critical success factors for enhancing virtual project team performance in South Africa's local government context
    (2025) Lande, Kwanda; Tuan, Nien-Tsu
    Internationally, virtual project teams have surfaced as an essential organizational structure due to improved information and communication technology and changes in corporate values. Furthermore, virtual project teams are favoured for the flexibility they provide in terms of recruiting the best available experts regardless of their location, improving productivity by reducing commuting time and operational costs for organizations. Despite this, virtual project teams are also associated with many challenges, linked to communication, collaboration and sharing of information, that negatively affect Virtual Project Team Performance (VPTP). Hence, identifying what enhances VPTP is of great importance. This research aimed to identify Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for enhancing VPTP in the South African local government context (focusing on the City of Cape Town), determine the interrelationship between the identified CSFs, and identify CSFs to prioritize when implementing and managing virtual project teams. The research participants for this study identified 20 CSFs using Interactive Management methodology techniques linked to CSF generation, and CSF clarification processes. Moreover, research participants generated an Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) that illustrates the CSFs that "significantly help to achieve” other CSFs. Using the transitive logic inferences embedded in the ISM program, this research has revealed that CSFs such as shared values among team members, regular team brainstorming sessions, reviewing lessons learned of previous projects, effective communication, technical skills competencies aligned to tasks, project progress and performance management, time management and boundaries, reliable technology and network system, and regular in-person engagements even when virtual working is the norm, are relatively important based on the number of other CSFs that they significantly help to achieve. The benefit of this study is twofold: firstly, it helps to extend prior research on CSFs for VPTP by contributing new information based on the views and experiences of virtual project team stakeholders in the South African local government context. Secondly, this research is essential for South African municipalities as it identifies CSFs in one municipality that other municipalities can use as a base to build from in identifying and implementing CSFs for VPTP in their organizations.