Abstract:
Apart from direct costs in the provision of transport, other indirect costs are generated
amongst others through accidents, emissions, and congestion. However, in most
instances, these costs are not borne by users of the transport system (at least not directly).
Appraising transport interventions solely based on operator and user costs is not sufficient.
In this paper, the effectiveness of the Total Social Cost (TSC) approach to guide the
provision of transport infrastructure and services was implemented and evaluated against
the conventional modal hierarchy approach using the Atteridgeville-Pretoria CBD corridor
as a case study. The TSC approach can account for both direct and indirect costs in
transport provision and appraisal. The study's findings show that the TSC approach for the
analysed corridor is important in unpacking the trade-offs required for determining the
most (cost) effective mode of transport necessary to service demand along a corridor. This
is then contrasted with the TSC approach results with those of the modal hierarchy
approach and show the impact of not explicitly detailing the trade-offs between the
operator, user, and external costs. This lack of detail might result in prioritising the wrong
investments in transport in the long term, as such resulting in unsustainable cities.
