Experience of, and successes in, the formulation and implementation of travel demand management policies and plans are generally limited in African cities. It is posited that one of the main reasons for poor success is the absence of a plausible conceptual understanding, grounded in local conditions, of what prompts changes in travel behaviour to occur, who is most susceptible to change, when and how frequently change occurs, and how this differs across the different elements of a trip decision.
Past transport plans and strategies have essentially focussed has been on a desired end-state, rather than on the process through which this end-state is to be achieved. Prevailing methods of travel choice analysis have furthermore just asked how people choose between different alternatives, rather than how and when people choose between different alternatives. The starting hypothesis of the research is therefore that travel choices are not made deliberately every day; that travel choices, if proven in past experiences to be satisfactory, tend to become habitual; and that travel habits are typically broken when some form of ‘life shock’ triggers a reappraisal of the habit and leads to an alternative deliberate habit-forming decision.
The main contribution of this project relates to understanding the prospects of increasing the use of public and non-motorised transport modes amongst passenger groups with the choice of private car use, and the prospects of easing the burden of long non-motorised transport trips in poorer communities through increased cycling. In addition, with respect to passenger groups captive to public transport but with a choice of alternative public transport modes, the project may produce useful insights into the prospects of integrating paratransit with improved road-based public transport systems.
Project leader: A/Prof Roger Behrens
Centre for Transport Studies, University of Cape Town
