The Use of CoAXs in Tshwane to Communicate Transport Impacts in Stakeholder Engagement

Abstract

Collaborative Accessibility-based Stakeholder Engagement (CoAXs) is an interactive planning tool intended to enhance public participation in planning public transport systems. To assess its applicability in various contexts, it has been implemented in the United States, in Chile, and, as presented in this paper, in Tshwane, South Africa. Tshwane is two years behind its plans to expand the A Re Yeng Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network, largely due to initial resistance by private vehicle users to the city’s Line 2B expansion plan. Using an adapted version of CoAXs that allows users to create scenarios by selecting Line 2B route options and visualise the corresponding accessibility impacts, four public engagement workshops were conducted in July 2018 in Tshwane. Using surveys and observations during the workshops, this study finds that CoAXs moderately broadened the users’ scope of expected impacts of the BRT route options and prompted different user groups, especially private vehicle users, to empathize with users of other transport modes. CoAXs was effective in facilitating and supporting public engagement conversations, although more understanding and consideration of the variation in appetite for such engagements across interest groups and over the project timeline will be helpful in the future.