A total social cost approach to public transport planning in South Africa

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.