Access and mobility in Gauteng's priority townships what can the 2011 quality of life survey tell us?

Abstract

Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 7-10 July 2014 "Leading Transport into the Future", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

The paper analyses the accessibility and mobility dimensions of travel together, in order to obtain a richer understanding of the quality of economic and social engagement afforded by particular locations. A four-quadrant plot of access and mobility indicators is presented that, together with an analysis of the wage gradient obtainable from a location, provides a useful way of differentiating between areas with distinctly different access-mobility characteristics. The method is applied to 27 priority township areas in Gauteng Province, using data from the 2011 Quality of Life Survey and other GIS sources. The analysis confirms that location along the core-periphery axis is very important to livelihood access. However several other factors such as rail access, the availability of local amenities and jobs, and proximity to several concentrations of job opportunities, can mitigate locational deficiencies. Implications for urban and transport planning are discussed.