Abstract:
Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. Available data with which to adequately understand learner travel behaviour, and its
significance for developing effective plans and strategies to address road safety and traffic
congestion problems, is insufficient. This paper reviews the findings of recent learner travel
surveys in parts of Cape Town which extend the available data, and enable an improvement of
current knowledge of learner travel behaviour and of the prospects of intervening effectively
in this segment of the passenger market. These studies take the form of a learner travel survey
conducted amongst 14 secondary schools in Mitchells Plain and two other similar, but less
extensive, surveys undertaken in Khayelitsha and Blaauwberg, which enable insights into the
relationship between socio-economic grouping and travel behaviour. The paper presents a
summary of the findings of these surveys, and reflects upon the need for, and prospects of,
establishing a longitudinal learner travel database. The paper illustrates a clear relationship
between household socio-economic grouping and learner mode use, with walking the
dominant mode amongst lower income learners and car travel the dominant mode amongst
higher income learners. The most common travel difficulties identified by the learners
surveyed include personal safety, travel time and road safety. It is argued that there are
benefits to be derived from learners who currently walk long distances switching to cycling,
and that the available data suggests that greater potential for switching to cycling exists
amongst learners in secondary schools. The benefits of establishing a longitudinal learner
travel database, drawn from a variety of sources including census data and past and future
ad hoc learner travel surveys, are argued to be improved data quality and validation to better
inform the formulation of plans and strategies directed at addressing the travel problems
experienced by learners, and an ability to monitor behavioural changes in response to the
implementation of these plans and strategies over time.
Description:
This paper was transferred from the original CD ROM created for this conference. The material on the CD ROM was published using Adobe Acrobat technology. The original CD ROM was produced by Document Transformation Technologies Postal Address: PO Box 560 Irene 0062 South Africa. Tel.: +27 12 667 2074 Fax: +27 12 667 2766 E-mail: doctech@doctech.co.za URL: http://www.doctech.co.za