Transportation

Transportation Planning

SVC 781

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Assignment 2:

Transport policy, planning and implementation case study:

A study into the effects of apartheid induced urban sprawl on transportation in South Africa

Student: Auret Basson

Student Nr: 22136721

1 Problem identification

In the resent number of decades growth in the number of cars in the world has been far higher than the growth in urban population. Although most of the vehicles are in first world countries, some other countries, like South Africa, have experienced of the highest growth in the number of road vehicles.

This poses a greater problem to third world countries as funding for the expansion transportation networks are not as readily available as in first world countries. The traffic growth in South Africa is also concentrated in the larger cities, stimulated by the increase in incomes for previously disadvantaged groups of society above the overall expansion of economic activities.

The physical spread of South African cities has also generated greater use motor transport resulting in even longer trip distances and traffic congestion comparable to highly developed cities. To spite the lower car-ownership, poor road maintenance and poor traffic-management systems in a widely spread out urban geography ensures high levels of congestion. Thus the causes and effects of the unique situation regarding transportation and urban geography were chosen as theme for this study in hope of bringing some light on possible solutions for this problem.

In larger cities, like Johannesburg and surrounding areas, the traffic congestion can amount to billions of Rand per annum. Congested roads combined insufficient public transport also means high traveling costs for the lower income groups resulting in people spending large portions of their income just to get an income.

The demand of transportation for people or goods is largely determined by the spatial arrangement of different land uses in...