Travel behaviour in Cape Town, Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi cities.

Abstract

Paper presented at the 30th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 11-14 July 2011 "Africa on the Move", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

Public and non-motorised transport facilities in urban centres in Africa are less than what is justified by the demand. This may be due to the way the urban transportation problem has been formulated and travel surveys carried out with a focus on establishing demand for travel by car. The aim of this study was to document travel behaviour in the three cities without bias to any of the modes so that Issues hindering the sustainable modes may be identifies and investigated. Household interviews were conducted by experienced interviewers using similar questionnaires across the cities. The questionnaire included a place based trip diary and questions to captured demographics data. Analysis was carried out using SPSS and Excel software to produce demographic and trip characteristics summaries and charts. The results indicate that the demand for non-motorised travel is higher in Dares Salaam and Nairobi compared to Cape Town. Gross trip generation rates increased with income only slightly. However, for Nairobi and Dar es Salaam nonmotorised trip rates declined with income. Usage of public transport for the trip to work and to school is highest in Dares Salaam. The comparison of travel behaviour in terms of mode choice for different trip purposes and trip rates between the three cities revealed similarities and differences that can be accounted for by demographics, level of income, culture, urban form and transport policies. NMT and public transport play a critical role in all the three cities. Policies to encourage use of NMT and public transport are recommended for the case of Cape Town while Dar es Salaam and Nairobi cities need to consider how to provide for the existing high demand for these modes. In addition, the City of Dar es Salaam should address planning issues causing the low proportion of NMT mode usage for the trip to school.