Travel demand management in the city of Cape Town

Abstract

Paper presented at the 28th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 6 - 9 July 2009 "Sustainable Transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

Sustainable Transport is about finding ways to move people, goods and information in a manner that reduce its impact on the environment, the economy and society, today and into the future. The City of Cape Town has incorporated sustainability as an important and overarching theme in its Integrated Transport Plan (2006 - 201 1) and has identified Travel Demand Management (TDM) as a critical mechanism towards a shift to a more balanced and sustainable transport system.The City of Cape Town has formulated a number of strategies that aim to influence travel behaviour for the purpose of reducing and/or redistributing travel demand. The three main TDM strategies that the City is focusing on are the upgrade of Park-and-Ride facilities, large employer programmes and the promotion of higher occupancy vehicles. The upgrade of Park-and-Ride facilities at rail stations across the metropolitan area is the first of these that is currently being implemented.Rail stations were evaluated in order to determine their potential in reducing private car travel by attracting car users to rail. Factors that were considered in the evaluation included: human factors, station attributes, urban environment at stations and marketing of stations. It was concluded that capital interventions in Park-and-Ride facilities alone would not result in long term travel behaviour changes. Rather, a sustainable shift in travel behaviour would require a suppotive management system.