Understanding Travel Needs of the Poor: Towards Improved Travel Analysis Practices in South Africa

Roger Behrens and Roger Behrens

Transport Reviews, 2003, vol. 24, issue 3, 317-336

Abstract: The ability of conventional South African travel analysis practices to analyse adequately the travel needs of the poor is examined. The origins and nature of conventional practices are described, and it is observed that typically their scope has been limited to motorized modes, commutes and peaks. The paper reports on the findings of an activity diary survey administered in Cape Town that extended the conventional scope of analysis. An activity‐based survey method was selected because it typically yields higher rates of trip recall than other methods and is therefore relatively well suited to investigating travel behaviour in its fuller complexity. Selected findings of the survey are presented to demonstrate that travel occurring by non‐motorized modes, for non‐work purposes and during off‐peak periods, is considerable. It is argued that the conventional limitation in analytical scope can create serious misconceptions of the true nature of travel behaviour, particularly of low‐income households. By restricting the focus of analysis to motorized, work and peak period trip‐making, there is a risk of a routine bias being introduced in the way the urban passenger transport problem is understood, and in the nature of the interventions that are implemented as a result.

Date: 2003
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144164032000138779 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:transr:v:24:y:2003:i:3:p:317-336

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TTRV20

DOI: 10.1080/0144164032000138779

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Reviews is currently edited by Professor David Banister and Moshe Givoni

More articles in Transport Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().