Social facility planning: comparing accessibility in Tshwane based on different transport networks

Abstract

Detailed transport networks providing distance or time measurements are a common way to measure levels of spatial accessibility. An often-overlooked matter is that using a single transport network does not consider how different portions of the population may depend on different modes of transportation. This means the actual accessibility of facilities would be overestimated since one would assume commuters travelling with a private vehicle in cities within developing countries like South Africa would take less time and have greater access to facilities than those using public transportation. A matter to consider is that most accessibility analyses have not focused on classifying the population based on the mode of transport that they would mostly depend on. A tool developed by the CSIR to determine spatial accessibility was used to illustrate this. This research thesis compares the spatial accessibility of social facilities based on different modes of transportation (private vehicle; bus; rail and taxi). An impedance unit was applied to each of the modes of transport reflecting how far one may have to travel from their origin to reach the nearest node or stop. It was found that there is a significant disparity in terms of the spatial accessibility of certain social facilities for the estimated population in the City of Tshwane. A much larger proportion of Tshwane’s population has access to the facilities included in the research if they have access to private transportation as compared to public transport services. Subsequently, suggestions were made to address the matter at hand, including the extension of the public transport networks, the establishment of more social facilities or the relaxation of the standards used to determine how far is reasonable for residents to travel to reach their nearest facility.